


There's a Pure-Blood Custom For That

by Lomonaaeren



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Fluff, Humor, Kid Fic, M/M, Pureblood Culture, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-18
Updated: 2015-01-14
Packaged: 2018-01-25 14:49:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 36
Words: 105,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1652549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lomonaaeren/pseuds/Lomonaaeren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The day that Harry stops Draco Malfoy and his son from being bothered in the middle of Diagon Alley starts a strange series of interactions between him and Malfoy. Who knew there was a pure-blood custom for every situation?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Diagon Alley Rewards

**Author's Note:**

> A series of loosely linked, short “chapters” based on silly pure-blood customs, and a developing relationship between Harry and Draco. This is more humor and fluff than anything else, despite some angst.

“What are  _you_ doing here?”  
  
Harry sighed and leaned out the front door of George’s shop, which he helped manage on the days, like this one, when George felt too bewildered by a world without his twin to get out of bed. That sounded like the voice of Natalia Shwin, who he’d just helped choose a large bag of pranks. She had complained about their poor stock, about the lack of George being there today, about everything except the weather and the prices of the pranks. It made sense that she wouldn’t even get three steps from their front stoop when she would find something else to complain about.  
  
But today was a bit unusual, in that she was confronting a fair-haired man and his little boy, clutched by one hand, who had just been walking along the alley. Harry blinked, and looked at Natalia’s side. No, the bag of pranks still hung there, undisturbed. Harry shook his head and stepped out of the shop.  
  
“I want an answer!” Natalia snapped, and stepped forwards to face the man, reaching for her wand as she stared at his face. He turned a little, and Harry realized that he was looking at Draco Malfoy.  
  
“I don’t need to give you one.” Malfoy’s voice was low and rough. “I have as much right to walk down the middle of Diagon Alley as—”  
  
“No, you don’t!” Natalia had her wand out now.  
  
Harry rolled his eyes. The last thing they needed was an altercation right on the steps. George might think it was great fun if he was here, but Harry wasn’t George, and since the war, he really preferred to be at a distance from trouble. It was one of the reasons he hadn’t become an Auror.  
  
“ _Expelliarmus_ ,” he said, and Natalia’s wand soared across the distance between them and landed in his palm. Both she and Malfoy turned to gape at him as Harry came down the steps, shaking his head. “What’s wrong with you? The war was ten years ago. Get over it, or leave England.”  
  
Natalia clutched her bag of pranks, and didn’t say anything. Harry had seen her pull the routine of heartbroken widow on others—although Harry happened to know that her husband had been imprisoned just before the war for crimes that had nothing to do with it—and wail about how much she had lost to the Death Eaters. But even  _she_ was a little embarrassed to do that in front of the Defeater of Voldemort.  
  
Harry planted his hands on his hips. He didn’t use his fame often, but he would definitely use it when it could get him out of trouble, and he did now. “Unless you have something to say to me about the war and how much you suffered,” he added.  
  
“No,” said Natalia, and glared at Draco. “But Death Eaters shouldn’t be walking around free.”  
  
“Neither should people who attack other people in the street in front of our shop,” said Harry. Malfoy had actually served a year in Azkaban, but Harry saw no reason to go into that with Natalia. She wouldn’t listen anyway. “Go away, before I let the Aurors know about you.” He tossed her wand at her.  
  
Harry might not have joined them, but there were several Aurors who considered him one of them anyway, and some people who had joined that had life-debts they owed to Harry. One or two would be here in minutes if he sent his Patronus, slavering to arrest someone. Natalia knew it, and moved off with one more sullen glance and one especially saucy swing of her bag of pranks.  
  
“Why did you do that, Potter?”  
  
Harry glanced at Malfoy without much interest. The small boy beside him with one pudgy thumb stuck in his mouth was obviously his son, though he had eyes that were paler than Malfoy’s, closer to blue than grey. “Because she was in front of my shop, and causing trouble,” Harry said. “And because you’ve paid any debts that you owe society. Enjoy the rest of the day, Malfoy, Malfoy.” He nodded to the boy, whose name he had read in the paper when he was born but didn’t remember, and went back to the door.  
  
Malfoy spoke again just as Harry touched the handle. “I haven’t paid the life-debts I owe you, however.”  
  
Harry rolled his eyes at the sky. He had had enough talk of people owing him and arguing in the paper over whether he owed the wizarding world something, and even of them passionately defending his right to live his life the way he chose. As far as he was concerned, everyone was equal who had survived the war. Harry was here to take care of the people he loved, like George and Molly and even sometimes Ron and Hermione, who had been hurt by the war, and the rest of the wizarding world, he presumed, was doing the same. “I don’t want them. I forgive them. I don’t care.”  
  
There was a loud gasp that didn’t sound like Malfoy, and made Harry glance over his shoulder in annoyance. The last thing he needed was someone else wandering into this situation and darting off to the papers. Harry had used a few minor Memory Charms in the past to prevent things like this.  
  
But it was Malfoy’s son, who had taken his thumb out of his mouth and was pointing at Harry with it. “Life-debts are  _important_ ,” he said. “Daddy said so.” He looked up at Malfoy with a worshipful expression that made it clear his world began and ended with “Daddy said so.” Well, like Draco, like Lucius, like nameless kid, Harry reckoned.  
  
“Fine,” Harry said. “They’re important. But I still forgive them.” There was a drizzle coming on, the kind of fine, pattering rain that he suspected was building up to a bigger storm. Harry shoved the door open.  
  
“Then you’re subject to the pure-blood custom of Equal Reward,” Malfoy announced.  
  
Harry leaned his head on the wood of the doorframe. “What are you on about now, Malfoy?” he asked. “Something you invented?”  
  
“Of course not.” Harry turned around, because it was becoming increasingly obvious he had to, to find Malfoy at his haughty best, colder than the rain. “It’s the pure-blood custom that says someone who saves the current head or heir of a line with no thought of increasing or incurring a life-debt for himself deserves a reward.” He looked at Harry down his nose, despite standing in the street below the quite high stoop of Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes. “And you saved both head and heir.”  
  
Harry shook his head. He suspected Malfoy was yanking this load of bollocks out of his arse, but he saw no reason to object, not really. If it would get him out of this potentially awkward situation sooner, he’d go along with it. “Fine. Then I demand the excruciating reward of one Galleon.”  
  
“You don’t get to set the reward,” Malfoy said, while his son gaped back and forth between him and Harry. Someone had poured iron down Malfoy’s backbone in the years since he got out of prison, Harry thought idly. “The person who tells you that you deserve one does.”  
  
“Uh, right,” Harry said. He wondered what Malfoy would think he deserved. A bow? A thanks?  
  
“A handshake,” Malfoy announced, and his voice slotted effortlessly into the place waiting for it in Harry’s mind.  
  
 _Isn’t that more a reward for you than for me?_ But Harry wasn’t that small and petty anymore; he could think lots of petty things, but he wouldn’t speak them. He nodded and came down the stoop, holding out his hand. “Fine.”   
  
He expected Malfoy to shake his hand and be done with it, but instead, Malfoy clasped it while staring intently into his eyes. Harry raised his brows. Malfoy didn’t let that make him get flustered or back out of it. He only gave Harry a tight little smile, as though they were mutually agreeable acquaintances, and then loosened his grip and stepped back. Now he did bow, a creaky gesture from the waist.  
  
“Thank you,” he said.  
  
“You’re welcome,” Harry said, shrugging. This had taken longer than he’d thought it would when he confronted Natalia, but not that much longer. And it wasn’t much time out of his day, after all.  
  
“Daddy did it!” said the boy, staring up at Draco with that awe again. Harry had to grin. It was kind of cute. And it was even more refreshing to have someone stare like that at a person other than  _him_ , for once.  
  
“We both did,” said Malfoy, giving Harry a faint, satisfied smile. “Good-bye, Potter. Come along, Scorpius.” And he hauled the no longer nameless, but still  _really_ unlucky, kid away with him.  
  
Harry snorted and went back into the shop. Well, that had been a minor diversion between customers.  
  
He wondered if that pure-blood custom really existed, but honestly, he didn’t care enough to look it up. In ten minutes, it would be time to close up the shop and take lunch to George and try to coax him to eat.   
  
And there it probably would have ended, except for Malfoy’s propensity for paying attention to any mention of Death Eaters.


	2. Brushes With Newspapers

“And I hear that you will sell your pranks even to,” Ariana Night leaned close and lowered her voice, “Death Eaters.”  
  
Harry sighed. Night had been pleading with him for an interview, and Harry had agreed because she’d promised to talk mostly about the shop, and he did feel sorry for her, the most junior reporter on the  _Daily Prophet_. But he was starting to regret it. Night would twist questions around so that they were always about the war anyway, or Harry’s old relationships with Ginny and Daphne Greengrass, or something else she considered scandalous.  
  
They were in the back room of the shop, the one where leaning shelves and piled books contained prototypes and notes on the most delicate magical experiments, so Harry couldn’t simply explode with anger. Instead, he stared at Night until she started to fidget on her stool. Her foot hit a stack of books. Harry prevented them from falling over with an easy motion of his wand, and spoke quietly.  
  
“I don’t think that I ought to judge a person’s past when selling them pranks. Mr. Weasley agrees with me. We look instead at what a person might use them for, or whether they’re buying pranks in very large numbers, or suspicious ingredients. That’s what we judge them on, not their pasts.”  
  
Night rapped her quill quickly against her notebook, and her smile spread wide. “But you can’t deny that Death Eaters have used the products of this very shop to cause mischief! Why, Draco Malfoy himself bought the Peruvian Darkness Powder that he used…”  
  
Her tongue apparently dried up. Harry knew why. Any reference to Fred, even so disguised a one as this, would draw forth a glare from him that Hermione told him was more devastating than a basilisk’s. Ron refused to stay in the same room with him when he looked like that.  
  
What George would have done was even worse. Harry was thankful beyond words that George was in Romania at the moment, visiting Charlie and also negotiating for scraps of dragon eggshell for their latest project.  
  
“I won’t deny it,” Harry said. “I also won’t deny that plenty of people who aren’t Death Eaters have pranked people and had the pranks go wrong and cause more harm than they meant to, or used some of the products of our shop to commit suicide, or get away with cheating, or make someone believe a hurtful lie. But they can do the same thing with ingredients from any apothecary, with books from Flourish and Blotts, with magical creatures from any pet shop. Are you going to argue that  _they_ should also be questioned?”  
  
Night lifted her chin with a rustle of thick black hair. “Well, no. But the Boy-Who-Lived serving Death Eaters? It’s so  _appalling_.”  
  
“You know nothing about me,” Harry said softly, rising to his feet. “And I’ll thank you to leave. This interview is over.”  
  
“You haven’t answered most of my questions!” Night unrolled a scroll of parchment that looked almost as long as she was tall. “I have so many things that I want to ask you, and you haven’t obliged at all…”   
  
She trailed off, maybe because Harry had drawn his wand. Harry waved it and murmured, “ _Ventus_.”  
  
The modified Wind Charm only worked in the back room of the shop, since it was there mainly as a precaution to deter thieves, but it worked quite well. It scooped up Night and her notebook and quill and threw them bodily through the door into the main room of the shop. Harry locked it behind her, and spent some time ignoring her hammering on the wood until she stomped off.  
  
Then he opened it and called out sweetly, “You might not want to touch anything.”  
  
A squeal and a puff of blue smoke said that his warning came too late. Harry rolled his eyes and went to fetch a shovel.  
  
Although he was pleased beyond words that George felt well enough now to do things like travel to Romania and leave Harry in charge of Wheezes, he would also be pleased beyond words when George came  _back_.  
  
*  
  
“I have to speak to Potter.”  
  
 _And that’s Malfoy,_ Harry thought, poking his head out from the shelves where he was stacking the newest display of Exploding Whizzbees.   
  
Malfoy was indeed standing in the front of the shop, with little Scorpius beside him again. Scorpius was gaping at the shelf of tiny, color-changing toy puppies in a way that made Harry smile. No child was too young to be enchanted by the pranks that George had invented.  
  
George stood behind the counter, and his gaze was fixed on Malfoy as if he could make him fly out through the door without using his wand. “Get out of here,” he said. “Death Eater.”  
  
“Yes, other people call me that name, too,” said Malfoy, unmoved. “It’s that I’m here about.” He caught sight of Harry then, and nodded him over. “Yes, you. I need to talk to you.”  
  
 _Being in Azkaban hasn’t cost him_ all  _his pride, then,_ Harry thought, and moved over to him. “I hope you’re not talking about that ridiculous Night woman,” he said. “I told her we didn’t care who bought our pranks. It’s not my fault if she reported something else.” He could sense George’s balance shifting behind him. They’d had a good laugh over Night, and George was curious now, rather than angry.  
  
“I know you refused to tell her you were concerned about me buying the products of your fine shop.” Harry gaped at him, but Malfoy was apparently speaking those last words with total seriousness. “It’s that I’m here about. She reported you were defending Death Eaters. It took me a while to find out the truth behind that claim, and simply determine that you were defending my right to do what everyone else did.”  
  
“She brought you up once,” Harry said, a little lost now. “The Peruvian Darkness Powder.”   
  
There was a footstep and a slam behind him, and Harry turned. George had gone into the back room. He did, when the war came up.  
  
“She brought me up,” said Malfoy. “You defended me.”  
  
Harry snorted. “I would hardly describe it that way. I granted her an interview because I thought there was the chance she would report on me more kindly than some people. And because I felt sorry for her.”  
  
Malfoy looked at him the way a hawk that Harry had found with a broken wing and nursed back to health once had, as though he was such an inconvenience that Malfoy couldn’t understand how he found himself forced to deal with Harry. “And how many people do you feel _sorry_ for on a daily basis?”  
  
“I’ve lost count,” Harry said.  
  
Scorpius came towards him, holding a small winged and whirring bird in his fingers. “How do you make it fly?” he demanded of Harry, and extended it towards him.  
  
“Don’t bother Mr. Potter, Scorpius.” Malfoy clipped both his voice and his son’s shoulder. “Since he only has time for  _pity_.”  
  
Harry rolled his eyes and knelt in front of Scorpius. “You have to touch the button on its back,” he said. “And speak nicely to it.” He and George had designed the little birds after hippogriffs; they wouldn’t fly around the room, “causing havoc” as one reporter in the  _Prophet_ had put it, for people who were rude.  
  
“Oh, I can do that!” Scorpius’s face was brilliant. He pushed down on the button with one heavy little thumb, and said, “Please fly for me!”  
  
The bird’s wings stilled for a moment, and then it lifted away from Scorpius’s palm and soared towards the ceiling in a dizzy spiral. Scorpius laughed and clapped. The bird flew back down and landed on Scorpius’s shoulder, rubbing its beak against Scorpius’s chin.  
  
“I want it, Daddy,” said Scorpius, imperiously enough that Harry changed his mind a little about who was really in charge of this family.  
  
“How much?” Malfoy’s voice was still clipped as he reached into his pouch.  
  
“Free to cute kids,” said Harry, and ruffled Scorpius’s hair the way he did with Rosie’s. Scorpius stared at him in a way that said no one had ever dared to do that before. Harry changed his mind again. Scorpius might rule the family and get his dad to buy him anything he wanted, but he was still deprived.  
  
“We can pay for it.” Malfoy’s chin had achieved new levels of haughtiness. “We are not  _paupers_.”  
  
“For Merlin’s sake, Malfoy.” Harry would have used stronger language, but not with Scorpius in the room. “I’ve felt sorry for other people. I’ve given away pranks to other people before who were perfectly willing and able to pay, just because I liked them. You keep talking about how you deserve to be treated like everyone else? Well,  _that’s what I’m doing_. Stop talking like you should be the center of my pity  _or_ my universe.”  
  
Malfoy looked at him with blank eyes, and Scorpius looked at him with anxious eyes. “Are you arguing with Daddy?” he asked. He shifted from foot to foot and touched the little golden bird on the back. “Why?”  
  
Harry broke the gaze that he and Malfoy were holding, and smiled at Scorpius. “No. I was just telling him the truth.” He stepped back. “I should go check on George. Good-bye, Malfoy, Scorpius.”  
  
“Wait,” said Malfoy, and gestured at him. “I haven’t told you exactly what brought me here.”  
  
“Misconceptions, I think,” Harry said softly, not taking his eyes from Malfoy’s face.  
  
“Perhaps not,” said Malfoy ambiguously, which made Harry roll his eyes a little. He wasn’t any better at figuring out riddles in conversation than he was at researching the inane pure-blood customs Malfoy seemed to be relying on. That was what Hermione was good at—both things.  
  
“Well, anyway, I haven’t done anything that you need to thank me for,” Harry said. “So it can’t be a pure-blood custom.”  
  
“There’s all sorts of pure-blood customs,” said Malfoy, his voice so soft that Harry wouldn’t have heard if it had already moved a little further away. “But the one that applies in this situation—for defending my good name—is an obligation of hospitality. You ought to visit the home of the family you defended.”  
  
Harry recoiled before he could stop himself. His mind was full of Dobby’s death and the nightmares from which Hermione woke screaming, the nightmares of her torture by Bellatrix. “No  _thanks_.”  
  
Malfoy’s face changed as he examined Harry. Then he said, “Perhaps the obligation can be altered, in this case, to meet in a place where we both feel comfortable. The Leaky Cauldron?”  
  
“You don’t have to meet me anywhere.” Harry stared at the wall, and took a deep breath. The nightmares he’d held Hermione through last month, when Ron had been gone on an Auror mission, had been particularly upsetting.  
  
“But I want to.”  
  
Harry stared back at him. Then he snorted. Malfoy wanted to go this far for a silly joke? Fine. Harry would call his bluff.  
  
“The Leaky Cauldron at one-o’clock on Wednesday, then,” he said, naming the busiest time.  
  
Malfoy only nodded gravely. “I hope you won’t mind if I bring Scorpius. I hate to leave him with the house-elves.”  
  
 _He is persisting with the joke._  Harry threw up his hands, physically and mentally, and turned towards the back room of the shop. “I’ll look forward to it, Malfoy.”  
  
“I will, too. Maybe then, I can extend thanks that will be more graciously accepted.”  
  
Harry turned around with an acid retort on his tongue that not even the presence of Scorpius would have kept him from saying, but Malfoy was already leaving the shop. Scorpius waved madly at him over his shoulder where the golden bird perched, singing tinny notes.  
  
Harry leaned against the wall and made a series of noises he wouldn’t have wanted to try to define. They were kind of like screaming, and kind of like grunting, and kind of like laughter.  
  
Then he went to see how George was doing, but his mind was already on the Leaky Cauldron next week, and what the hell Malfoy would be there for.


	3. Obligations of Hospitality

Harry paused and looked around the Leaky Cauldron, not really surprised that Malfoy and Scorpius weren’t here yet. Although he had showed up, he thought that Malfoy would probably back out, if it was a joke. And Harry wouldn’t blame him. Hell, he would be glad to have a silly joke over with. They weren’t twelve anymore. There was no reason to play pranks on each other.  
  
Harry did make sure that he got a mug of Firewhisky before he went to his table. He could use the taste of the drink in his mouth to make him forget about the fight he’d had with George over coming.  
  
George had spoken about Death Eaters and Malfoy and how they didn’t have to show that they approved of Malfoy and what he had done, very passionately. Harry had agreed with that. They  _didn’t_ need to approve of it. It would be stupid to approve of it, when it had got Bill scarred.   
  
But he disagreed with the assumption that it meant they needed to yell at Malfoy or exile him from the shop, either. Malfoy had served his year for letting Death Eaters into the school and the consequences of it. It had actually been the only crime that he was convicted for, as the witnesses to the other crimes either were Death Eaters themselves or declined to press charges, the way Harry had. So Malfoy had paid for that.  
  
George didn’t have to see or serve him. And really, Harry could live happily for the rest of his life without seeing him either.  
  
But this was something that would nag at him like an aching tooth if he didn’t settle it. If nothing else, perhaps he could learn why Malfoy wanted to play a prank on him after so many years of productively ignoring each other.  
  
“Potter.”  
  
Harry glanced up, eyebrow rising. Yes, there was Malfoy, clutching Scorpius’s hand. Scorpius was staring around with an intense interest that told Harry he had never been in such a busy place. He tugged on Malfoy’s hand and whispered, “Daddy, is that a  _hag_?”  
  
“It is, Scorpius,” said Malfoy, without looking around, which made Harry decide that the war hadn’t dented his self-confidence much. “But it’s rude to point.” He drew out a chair and shrank it slightly for Scorpius with his wand, then settled his son into it. “I’m going to get lunch for us,” he told Harry. “What do you want?”  
  
Harry blinked at him. He had assumed that little announcement was just Malfoy’s way of asking Harry to watch Scorpius for a short time. But this was… “You don’t need to buy me anything,” he said. “I ate before I came. And this is paid for, too,” he added, hoisting the mug of Firewhisky when Malfoy’s eyes fell on it. It was true that he had only eaten breakfast and not lunch, but the argument with George had killed a lot of his appetite.  
  
Malfoy opened his mouth. Harry never knew what he would have said, because just then, something else entered the conversation.  
  
“Is that  _your_ tummy growling?” Scorpius stared at Harry, then ducked his head and covered his face with his hands as he laughed. “Feed the beast! That’s what Daddy always says. Feed the beast!”  
  
Harry couldn’t help smiling. Really, things would have been easier if Malfoy had left Scorpius at home and he wasn’t so bloody  _cute._  “Yes, fine,” he said. “It was breakfast, and not lunch,” he added, when he saw Malfoy’s narrowed eyes. It was important for Malfoy to know he wasn’t lying. “I did eat. But not recently.”  
  
Malfoy nodded regally. “I know what I want, and Scorpius told me before he came. What do you want?”  
  
Harry waved his hand. “A cheese sandwich is fine.”  
  
Malfoy’s faintly puzzled expression said what he thought about that as lunch, but he nodded and strode away through the crowd. Scorpius had only had time to tell Harry what he had named the bird (Golden), how many tricks he could do with it (nine), and how much he liked it (lots) before Malfoy came back with the food. Scorpius had a sandwich, too, and Malfoy a plate of salad that surprised Harry. He hadn’t known that the Leaky Cauldron even had salads.  
  
“Thanks,” said Harry, eyeing Scorpius’s sandwich as he bit into his so he could understand why Malfoy was so disdainful of  _Harry_ only eating that for lunch. Then he saw a corner of lettuce sticking out of Scorpius’s bread, and nodded wisely. Apparently, cheese by itself wasn’t healthy enough for a father to approve of.  
  
 _Lucky for everyone concerned that he’s not my dad, then._  
  
Harry entertained himself for a second of how much trouble he would have given  _any_ Malfoy as a son, but especially Lucius, then came back to the present when he saw Malfoy’s gaze fix sternly on him. Maybe he was a good enough Legilimens to read surface thoughts, like Snape, and didn’t approve of the frivolous direction Harry’s thoughts had taken. Come to that,  _Harry_  wasn’t sure he approved of it.  
  
“Did you have something specific you wanted to talk about?” Harry asked, and ate some more of his sandwich while Malfoy appeared to hesitate about how he wanted to respond.  
  
Scorpius tugged on his sleeve and whispered something to him. Malfoy nodded and faced Harry. “You may wonder what obligation of hospitality I am fulfilling, and why it can be met by meeting here instead of in the Manor.”  
  
“I did wonder about that,” said Harry. “But I didn’t think you’d be here, honestly.”  
  
“Why not?” Malfoy’s voice was so glacial that Harry was a little surprised not to see ice curl around the piece of carrot on his fork.  
  
“Because I thought it was a joke,” Harry said, and held his eyes, shaking his head in response to Malfoy’s headshake. “Come on, Malfoy. You’ve ignored me for years, and if you want to pay for those life-debts, or get payment for the ones I owe your family, then why did you wait so long to collect them?”  
  
Malfoy’s mouth worked, and then he filled it with more vegetables that he crunched up emphatically. Harry waited. That wasn’t an answer.  
  
Malfoy sipped from his glass of water, and finally replied, “It has nothing to do with life-debts, or with jokes.”  
  
“Then tell me what it has to do with.” Harry saw the quick glance Malfoy gave Scorpius, but he shook his head impatiently. If this was completely inappropriate for Scorpius’s ears, then Malfoy shouldn’t have brought him along. What had he  _thought_ he and Harry would be discussing? The best way to roast pigeons whole, or whatever other decadent food Malfoy ate on a regular basis?  
  
With a long sigh, Malfoy finished another forkful of salad. Then he put down his fork and said, “Your compassion towards me in Diagon Alley that day was unexpected.”  
  
“So was your custom,” said Harry. “But I already told you that I think you should be treated just like anyone else.”  
  
“Not special?” Scorpius interrupted. He was staring at Harry with an expression that looked like it could become a pout at any second.  
  
Harry grinned back. “No. I don’t want you or your dad threatened, but if I saw someone else with a kid, then I’d protect them, too.”  
  
“Oh.” Scorpius leaned back in his chair and folded his arms, with a scowl. “I thought you were my special friend.”  
  
Malfoy coughed and picked up his napkin to pat at his lips, but Harry had seen the smile on them. It was still visible in his eyes. He probably thought Harry couldn’t get out of this without disappointing a kid.  
  
“I just think a lot of people are special,” said Harry, doing his best to smile at Scorpius and glare at Malfoy both at once. “But you got your bird, right? So you can think of me as your friend.”  
  
Scorpius studied him a little more, then said, “But why wouldn’t you come over to our house?”  
  
“Yes,” Malfoy murmured, picking up his glass again, although it was empty now. “I wondered myself if you would ever accept the invitation.”  
  
“I prefer to be in public,” Harry said. If Malfoy hadn’t started talking about the war to Scorpius yet—although if Scorpius knew some of the things Harry had done, that seemed impossible—Harry wasn’t about to begin it for him. “And I have a lot of things to do, you know. The shop to run, and my friends to take care of.”  
  
“Why do you have to take care of them?” Scorpius was sitting up and not pouting anymore, but smiling at Harry. “Why can’t you come over to our house sometimes?”  
  
And everything led back to the war. Really, Harry thought, this was why a friendship between him and Malfoy would be too hard. He had to drag Scorpius, an innocent, into a discussion that he and Malfoy knew every nuance of. Or he had to lie to him. Or he had to dance around so many things that there was barely anything they could talk about at all.  
  
“Because my friends were hurt by a bad man,” said Harry, glancing swiftly at Malfoy before he focused on Scorpius again. Malfoy just sat there with a calm, blank smile, as though he had never heard the story Harry was telling. “They have nightmares sometimes, you know? And they get scared. And they need to talk to someone. Sometimes they think it was their fault. So they need me there to tell them it wasn’t.”  
  
“Like when I have a bad dream and Daddy has to tell me I’m okay?” Scorpius had put his chin in his hands. It made him look absurdly older. It was absurdly cute.  
  
Harry was still determined not to let that influence him. This was so awkward.  
  
“Yes,” said Harry. “Exactly like that. They need me. It keeps me busy. And some of them—some of them know that the bad man had people  _like_ your dad helping him. It would hurt them if I went over to your house.” He turned back to Malfoy. There. That was as close to the truth as he would dance on his own. Now Malfoy would either have to put up or shut up.  
  
Malfoy only held his gaze, though, not seeming to feel the silent pressure to do anything in particular. His hand rested on his glass again, but he didn’t pick it up. He didn’t say anything and didn’t look away from Harry, either, until Scorpius broke in again.  
  
“But you could come over to our house sometimes, and just not tell them.” Scorpius was smiling at him. “You don’t have to tell everybody everything. That’s what Daddy says.” And he gave another adoring glance at Malfoy.  
  
“Such interesting things your daddy teaches you,” said Harry, holding Malfoy’s gaze. “No. Thank you for lunch, Malfoy.” He finished his sandwich with one more bite. “It’s been interesting. But this is too much for me.” He stood up.  
  
“Where are you going?” Scorpius cried in disappointment, reaching out with one hand. Several pairs of eyes focused on them from all over the restaurant. Harry hid a sigh. “You didn’t come over to see Golden! You didn’t explain anything to me! You didn’t say goodbye!”  
  
 _Damn it_. Harry was opening his mouth to answer Scorpius when Malfoy broke in, “Mr. Potter is going to say good-bye, Scorpius, but he does need to get back to work. And I have to talk about something adult with him. Will you mind sitting here while we do it?”  
  
“ _Adult_ stuff,” said Scorpius, in the tone that said something was deeply boring, and flopped back with his arms crossed and his lip stuck out in that pout Harry had been trying to avoid. Then he peered under his eyelashes at Harry. “But good-bye, Mr. Potter. Will you come over and see Golden?”  
  
Harry had to smile back. “I don’t know, Scorpius. Good-bye.”  
  
He expected Malfoy to lead him out of the pub, but instead, Malfoy flicked his wand, and a privacy ward rose around them. Scorpius didn’t seem angry at being shut out. He sat back in his chair and ate some more of his sandwich instead, then separated two crusts and began to chop them back and forth, whispering to himself.  
  
“It’s not a joke.”  
  
“Fine,” Harry told Malfoy. “You said that before. That doesn’t tell me what it  _is_ , and if it’s even worth me spending more time here with you or not.” He folded his arms in challenge as Malfoy eyed him. By his reckoning, Malfoy had got almost an hour of fun out of him, if he was playing with Harry and being cryptic on purpose. It was time for him to give a direct answer.  
  
Malfoy hesitated long enough that Harry nearly turned away after all and left him alone with his secrets. But he saw the way Malfoy bit his lip and glanced down and to the side, and sighed. It reminded him too much of Ron and the way he sometimes reacted after his nightmares—the ones he needed Harry there for but was embarrassed about having—for his own good.  
  
“I saw you come out that day in the alley,” Malfoy whispered. “I barely recognized you. And I never would have thought that you’d care about someone who was threatening me, but so mildly. I thought—I thought this might be a chance to show you that I  _did_ appreciate what you did for me in the trials, and show that we don’t need to be enemies. I don’t hate you anymore. I don’t dislike you except when you say something that I think is arrogant or treating me badly.” He held Harry’s eyes. “I thought we could make a fresh beginning.”  
  
Harry blinked slowly. Fine, that made sense, but one thing still didn’t. “Why would you want to make a new beginning with  _me_ , Malfoy? If it was one of your friends that you’d drifted apart from, that I could see.”  
  
Malfoy’s face worked through some more complex emotions, but he ended up shaking his head. “You never wanted to change your fate? To make new friends?”  
  
“I have all the friends I can use, really,” Harry said. Again his mouth filled with the taste of mold and darkness when he thought about arguing with George, and he bowed his head. “Sometimes I think that I’m not a good friend to the ones I have.”  
  
“Is it only people who were hurt in the war who have a claim on your time and attention?” Oddly, Malfoy was smiling. “I can fulfill that criterion, if you do have it.”  
  
Harry made a brushing-away motion with one hand. Put like that, it did make him sound incredibly selfish. “It’s more that what I said before is true. My friends would be hurt by me going to the Manor. George is hurt enough that I came here today. We had a big fight about it. They’re all so scarred from the war, Malfoy, and it’s not fair, but you and your family were part of that scarring. I can forgive you for what you did, but with them, it’s not forgiveness and more just not wanting to have you around to remind them.”  
  
“All so scarred,” Malfoy repeated, so slowly that Harry opened his mouth to remind him about Bill, although it seemed stunning that he would have forgotten. But Malfoy’s eyes were on his forehead. “Not you?”  
  
Harry half-grinned. “I don’t have nightmares. I didn’t lose my twin brother. I didn’t get tortured like Hermione did. I wouldn’t say that I have it  _easy_ , when I see the suffering the war caused around me every day, but I’m luckier than some.”  
  
Malfoy said nothing, the lines of his face drawing down further and further. Harry eyed him curiously. Had he thought they could bond over shared trauma or something? An interesting idea, not one that the Malfoy he’d known would have had, but not one that would work. Harry really didn’t have trauma. He had stress and worry, like everybody else. He was just an ordinary bloke going about his life and trying to help his friends go about theirs.  
  
“I see,” said Malfoy at last. “Well, then. I would say that you might at least consider what it means that I’ve reached out to you, shaken your hand and received a gift from you and entertained you to lunch. That you might consider whether you can spare any of your time for me or Scorpius.” He brushed hair away from his forehead, eyes intent.  
  
Harry shrugged. “I like Scorpius. But I meant it when I said that my life is full, and it would anger my friends for me to go anywhere near you.”  
  
“To go to my house or invite me to your shop, you said.” Malfoy’s eyes had a gleam that made Harry want to snap back, but he held still, and Malfoy followed it up with, “And do you let them dictate what you do in your own home?”  
  
“Is there a custom for that, as well?”  
  
“Sometimes,” said Malfoy, sounding unruffled, “it’s good manners to invite someone who’s treated you to a meal over for a meal, as well.”  
  
Harry studied him, then snorted. He didn’t really care what insinuations Malfoy made about his behavior, and even the way he criticized Harry’s friends no longer hurt Harry. But he didn’t want to make it sound as though he was consumed by his friends, because that might make Malfoy say more hurtful things  _to_ them, and they had enough pain to deal with as it was.  
  
And Scorpius was cute, and Harry wouldn’t mind seeing more of him. Maybe he could even learn to like his dad.  
  
“Fine,” he said. “One-o’clock on Tuesday, then?” Tuesdays were usually the day of the week George liked to be in the shop by himself, testing pranks that he knew Harry considered too dangerous. And Harry liked to leave him alone, to sleep in late and give George some independence. It might never be much—ten years after Fred’s death, George’s grief was still paralyzing—but he had to have  _some_ time alone.  
  
Malfoy smiled as though he had won a prize.  
  
“That sounds fine,” he said. “I’ll tell Scorpius to bring his bird.”  
  
And his hand came out and clasped Harry’s in a way that made Harry roll his eyes, but also raised a strange spark of warmth, hiding deep inside his belly. At least he knew this wasn’t a joke to Malfoy.


	4. Demands of Fever

“Damn,” Ron said, and then leaned over and vomited into a bucket that stood next to his bed. It hadn’t a minute before, but Harry had got handy with conjuring lots of things that his friends needed.  
  
“I know,” Harry said, and cast another charm to tell him how high Ron’s fever had got. Still higher than he liked. Ron had caught a Disease Charm full in the face when he was hunting down one of the nastier kidnappers of his career, and that, combined with working long hours and not eating much during the case, had knocked him into a full-blown fever and shaking and chills. “But it’ll be all right.” He stroked Ron’s forehead with one hand and cast another cooling spell on his skin. It had to be timed precisely, too, so that it didn’t cool him down  _too_ much. The fever had to work.  
  
“I feel as though I could cook an egg on my hair,” Ron moaned, and closed his eyes.  
  
“I know,” said Harry softly. “I know.” He moved the bucket over again, considered the clock, and spelled ice directly into Ron’s stomach. Ron shivered and complained. “Sorry,” Harry said, in what he knew was a completely unconvincing way.  
  
“Bloody bastard,” Ron said, without meaning it. He curled up and dragged some of the blankets with him, nearly falling off the bed.  
  
Harry adjusted him without thinking about it and glanced at the bedroom door. Hermione had her hands full with Rosie, who didn’t understand why she couldn’t visit her daddy and kept banging on the door. But although the disease was magical, Hermione was worried about their daughter catching it, and Harry didn’t blame her. Bad enough to have Ron aching and shivering and vomiting when he knew what was going on; you couldn’t explain something like that to Rose when she was this young.  
  
Luckily, the powerful glowing spell along the edges of the door was undisturbed. Rosie couldn’t get through it, even with accidental magic. There were advantages to being one of the most powerful wizards in the world, Harry thought.  
  
Or, well, something that  _felt_ like one of the most powerful wizards in the world. He didn’t actually know if he was or not, and he didn’t care. He wanted to be strong enough to take care of his friends, and that was all that actually mattered.  
  
He Summoned another bucket and cast a few Stomach-Soothing Charms as Ron started vomiting again.  
  
*  
  
Knocking on the door—his door, not Ron’s door, and slowly the memory surfaced of returning home in the small hours of the morning, after Ron’s fever had broken—pulled Harry from a sleep that had felt more like death. He sat up and scratched his forehead, trying to understand why someone would be knocking. Not Hermione. She would have firecalled if something had gone wrong with Ron. And so would George. And so would Molly.  
  
The knock came again, and the sharp call of, “Potter! You invite us to your home and then you keep us locked out?”  
  
Harry groaned and thought about flopping back down on the pillows and pretending he wasn’t home. He had totally forgotten that Malfoy and Scorpius were supposed to come by today. He wanted to  _sleep_. His body still ached from being driven to its limits, from staying up all night and casting lots of charms.   
  
But he had made the promise, so he cast a series of quick Cleaning Charms on himself, made sure that he had any empty food cartons from Muggle takeaway out of sight, and made his way to the door, calling, “Coming!”  
  
When he opened the door, Malfoy opened his mouth to rant at him, and then shut it abruptly and stared at Harry.  
  
“You invited us and kept us waiting,” said Malfoy. He shifted a little just as Harry opened his mouth to question what “us” he meant, and Harry saw that he was holding Scorpius’s hand, as usual. Scorpius had Golden in one hand, but he closed his mouth and stared at Harry. “That is rude. But when I see the state of your face, I think I might know why.” His gaze traveled beyond Harry, as if he wanted to see whether Harry’s home was dirty.  
  
Harry stepped back and shrugged at him. “I was up all night tending to Ron. He caught a Disease Curse in the face. Nasty thing. Do you want to go to the kitchen first, or the drawing room?” He managed to smile at Scorpius. “You can let your bird fly anywhere you want to. I proofed everything against pranks a long time ago.”  
  
“Golden isn’t a prank,” Scorpius muttered, but he smiled back, and stroked the little bird on his shoulder. It took off and flew around the room, and Scorpius released his father’s hand and ran after it.  
  
That left Malfoy standing there and studying him. Harry rolled his eyes. “I cast all sorts of charms on myself to make sure that I wouldn’t carry the sickness out of Ron’s room,” he said. “Hermione has a daughter, and she’s as protective of her as you could be of Scorpius.”  
  
“I don’t think so,” said Malfoy, but more in the tones of a pleasant observation than as if he wanted to make a point, so Harry let it go. He was still studying Harry. “You may not be sick, but you look exhausted.”  
  
“Is there a pure-blood custom that says the host has to look perfectly well-rested before he invites you in?” Harry didn’t manage to take the snap out of his voice this time, although he’d tried. “Or that you can’t accept food from anyone who doesn’t match your level of grooming?” He snapped his fingers at Malfoy’s slick, smooth hair. “Because I’m never going to look like you do, unless I manage to become an Animagus and a peacock is my form.”  
  
Malfoy’s nostrils flared. Then he said, “I was trying to be  _considerate._ I doubt whether you’re up to the challenges of hosting us today.”  
  
That made Harry turn away and walk into the house in silence, because fuck Malfoy, who did he think he was? Scorpius was spinning in the middle of Harry’s room, still chasing Golden, and laughing. He looked up at Harry and smiled. “Mr. Potter! This is fun!”  
  
“Good,” said Harry. “Would you like some lunch?”  
  
“Yes, please!” Scorpius called Golden back with a little wave of his hand, impressing Harry; you  _could_ command the birds that way, but it took most owners a long time to realize it. Then he trotted after Harry into the kitchen. “What are we having?” He scrambled up onto the one stool Harry had at the table, the one that Rosie always liked to sit on, too, and looked around as though the windows and plain wooden walls were unusual.  
  
Harry knew Malfoy had come in and was lingering in the doorway, but he planned to ignore him for the moment. “That depends on what you want,” he said. “I could make you a sandwich, or a salad, or eggs, or bacon—”  
  
“I’ve never had bacon,” said Scorpius. “I want it!”  
  
At that, Harry couldn’t help but turn and stare at Malfoy. He already knew that Scorpius had been deprived of things like people ruffling his hair, but honestly. To take bacon away from a child?  
  
Malfoy’s cheeks were slightly flushed, as though he was the one who’d been sick. “I didn’t think it was healthy for a child his age,” he murmured, and came to sit down on one of the regular chairs, across the table from Scorpius. Harry’s table stood in a little nook of the kitchen. Malfoy looked up and down, as though counting the panes in the windows that wrapped around the nook.  
  
“I’m  _six_!” Scorpius bounced on the stool. “I can have bacon!”  
  
“While you’re my guest, sure,” said Harry, but kept his eyes on Malfoy as he started Summoning plates and food. If Malfoy really had some good reason for wanting to keep it away from Scorpius, then Harry would just pretend he didn’t have any.  
  
But Malfoy maintained that intense interest in the features of Harry’s home. Harry shook his head as he took out the pan. To think that he should have lived to recognize signs of embarrassment in Draco Malfoy’s face.  
  
Scorpius ended up slipping off the stool and coming up to him, staring at the little flame that Harry conjured and the charms he cast and asking endless questions. Well, he would have had meals cooked by house-elves at home, and wouldn’t have seen this before, Harry supposed. Somehow, he couldn’t picture Malfoy cooking. He answered the questions as patiently as he could, and Scorpius seemed to know the moment when he had to go sit down and stop asking Harry questions if he wanted perfect bacon. He went to show Golden the world outside the windows, and make the little bird bow and scrape by touching the button in its back in a certain way.  
  
“I hope you don’t feel that we’re intruding.”  
  
Harry’s shoulders curled a little despite himself. Of course Malfoy would turn his attention away from the windows the minute Scorpius approached them. On the one hand, that was kind of flattering, reassuring Harry that Malfoy didn’t think anything in his house would hurt Scorpius. On the other hand, it was also  _immensely_ annoying. “I invited you,” he said, and turned the bacon over with a precise movement of his wrist so that it wouldn’t crisp too much. “If I forgot the date, then it’s not your fault.”  
  
There was a slight disturbance in the air next to him, and Harry started a little. He knew Scorpius was still over by the windows, chattering to his bird about what it might see if it flew over the gardens, so it had to be Malfoy. He just hadn’t expected Malfoy to come so close to him.  
  
“I wonder,” said Malfoy, and cast something. Harry concentrated on the bacon. It was going to be crispy all down the edges but still have some taste, just the way he liked it.  
  
“You  _are_ exhausted,” said Malfoy, his voice sharper than before. Harry didn’t raise his eyes to the ceiling only because he didn’t want to take them away from the bacon. Visiting an exhausted person probably didn’t set a good example for Scorpius or something. “Magically and physically. You should be on bed rest.”  
  
 _That_ was a new one. Harry glanced sideways at Malfoy as he finally settled the bacon, done to perfection, on the three plates that he’d already laid out. If Malfoy didn’t want his, Harry was sure Scorpius would eat it. “No one’s ever told me that before.”  
  
“Perhaps the charms that would tell them how sick you are aren’t common knowledge.” Malfoy was gripping his wand so hard that Harry briefly regretted not having the Elder Wand any more to heal it if it broke. “You look and  _feel_ as though you’re going to collapse. And you’re putting yourself out for us.”  
  
“Because you pointed out that the pure-blood customs apply to this situation.” Harry grinned. He didn’t feel light-headed, and he knew what magical exhaustion felt like, both from the inside and the outside, when George had driven himself through agonies of creation to produce a new prank and then collapsed. He did feel kind of smug that he was getting to use pure-blood customs against Malfoy as well as going along with them, for once. “I wanted to invite you to lunch. It was my choice. I did it. Now that you’re here, I have to honor it, don’t I?”  
  
Malfoy stood there, tense and unhappy, and looked towards Scorpius. Harry looked, too, but Scorpius wasn’t doing anything wrong. He was flying Golden around by holding it in his hand, now, and spinning in place so fast that he’d be dizzy by the time he was done.  
  
“Scorpius wanted to visit you so much,” Malfoy whispered. “He talked about it all week. And I know that he’s looking forward to eating bacon so much. I don’t want to take him away now.” He looked at Harry with eyes that seemed honestly haunted.  
  
Harry held back his laughter with an effort. “Really, it’s okay, Malfoy,” he said, and got out some scones and butter, too. He would just conjure water for them to drink. He didn’t have any pumpkin juice, or milk, or anything like that. “I’ll rest after you leave. I did get  _some_ sleep before you stumbled in here. It’s all right.”  
  
Malfoy drew himself up like an offended snake. “We did not  _stumble_ in.”  
  
“Came in, then.” The last thing Harry wanted at the moment was to argue about terminology. “Come on.”  
  
*  
  
Scorpius ate so much bacon that his cheeks bulged out like a squirrel’s, and he kept praising Harry as the best cook on the planet. Harry told him that he shouldn’t let the Malfoy house-elves hear that, which made Scorpius absurdly nervous, which made Malfoy tell him that it was okay and Prissy wouldn’t mind. Harry had to control his laughter again at the house-elf’s name. At least it had an r in it.  
  
When they were done with the meal, Scorpius flew Golden around the drawing room and Harry did the dishes. Malfoy stood nearby, not helping him—Harry reckoned that you weren’t supposed to do that if you were a pure-blood guest—but all but hovering. He seemed to think Harry would collapse at any moment.  
  
“Is there a custom that says you need to worry about your host’s health?” Harry asked, finally turning around to face him.  
  
“I worry about yours,” Malfoy said shortly. “I did not—Potter, I  _wouldn’t_ have come if I’d known that you were sick.”  
  
“I’m not,” said Harry, thinking now he knew what this was about. “I know how to check for that. I wouldn’t want to get Rose—Ron and Hermione’s daughter—sick, and Scorpius won’t catch it from me. Or you.” Maybe Malfoy was worried about himself, too.  
  
Malfoy glanced away from him and out the windows at the back garden, frowning. Then he said, “And what are your plans for the rest of the day?”  
  
“Go back to bed and sleep my arse off,” said Harry, and had to chuckle at the way that Malfoy automatically checked the distance between them and Scorpius. “You don’t want him to hear anything other than what you say to him?”  
  
“Certain words, he doesn’t need to know yet,” said Malfoy, and made a complex gesture with his wand. Again the air around them dimmed with some sort of privacy ward that would keep Scorpius from hearing what they said. Harry sighed. It was really none of his business, but it seemed likely to him that Malfoy would grow up with a distrustful son if he kept this up. And maybe he should say something for Scorpius’s sake.  
  
He’d just opened his mouth when Malfoy leaned in and spoke quietly, as though he expected the privacy ward to fail any second, too. “And so. Do you believe me now when I say that I wanted to make peace, and have since we first saw each other again in Diagon Alley?”  
  
Harry raised his eyebrows. Malfoy went on looking at him, calm and complacent. Or seemingly so. The way that his hands tightened on each other gave the lie to that appearance.  
  
“All right,” said Harry slowly. “Say that I  _do_ believe you. But I don’t think you need to do more than you’ve already done. I promise to go to bed, okay? And it’s good that you came and woke me up, or I would have slept straight through lunch, and I always have a headache when I don’t eat on time.”  
  
“That’s something that happens regularly, then,” said Malfoy, in the kind of tone Harry had heard Healers at St. Mungo’s use. “If you know what your response is likely to be ahead of time.”  
  
“I’m not neglecting myself,” said Harry. It was best to treat Malfoy like a reporter, he decided, someone who wanted to pounce on tiny “clues” and build up stories about Harry from there. “I promise that I’m not. My friends don’t take advantage of me. They need a lot of help, and sometimes I am tired or hungry after I help them. But I  _choose_ to do that. I could have told Ron to go to St. Mungo’s when he got sick. He would have gone. But I wanted to help him. And I didn’t get sick, and it’s recoverable. So don’t worry that much about me.”  
  
Malfoy was silent for long enough that Harry thought he had offended him. He was a little sorry for that. He wanted Malfoy to leave and stop sounding as though he blamed Harry’s friends for something, but he didn’t want to lose the chance to say hello to Scorpius sometimes.  
  
“Very well,” said Malfoy. “But there’s a pure-blood custom to make up for the worry that you’ve caused me, worry that I would not have expected to feel, as you are not part of the family.”  
  
Harry held back his groan. Of course there was another bloody custom. “What?”  
  
“Allow me to bring you a gift,” said Malfoy. “Within a week or so. I will need that long to decide on something I think you’d like.”  
  
“What, I don’t get to pick my own gift?” Harry asked, joking a little. He still thought Malfoy was making up half of these things, but the notion of a present did touch him. Probably growing up with the Dursleys, he thought. Gifts meant a lot to him.  
  
“No more than you got to pick your own reward.” Malfoy nodded regally to him and swept out of the room to collect Scorpius.  
  
Harry sighed and finished the washing-up. Seriously, Malfoy was being so ridiculous. Harry didn’t need obligations and old-fashioned rules to give his friends what they wanted.  
  
But he did have to keep his head bowed for an extra minute before he could go and tell them good-bye, to get control of his smile.


	5. Obtained With Difficulty

“And so the wheel doesn’t explode when we use it,” said George, nodding wisely as he bent over their latest prank. He touched one finger to the wheel in the center, then jerked it back. Harry reckoned it was still hot from the speed of its spin.  
  
Harry ladled some crushed carrots into his mouth and grinned at George. “You  _can_ learn. Sometimes I don’t despair.”  
  
George grinned back at him and leaned down around the prank, a miniature model of a cannon, again. “You still haven’t told me why you knew to move out of the way and didn’t get thrown against the wall like I did,” he muttered. He reached up to touch the bandage on the back of his skull.  
  
Harry promptly swatted his hand away, using a spell. He didn’t want to move from the table or the delicious stew from the Leaky Cauldron that he and George got every Friday. “When I see sparks leaping out of something, I move. Surprising, isn’t it?”  
  
“I think the war gave you a survival instinct some of the rest of us don’t have,” George muttered.  
  
His face clouded a second later. It always did, because speaking of the war would bring Fred back to him. Harry checked a sigh and instead asked, “So, you think you know how to fix it so sparks won’t come out anymore?”  
  
“Of course not,” George said. “We should leave that in. Early warning system, see? Maybe next time,  _you’ll_ be the one bumping up against the wall.”  
  
Harry opened his mouth to retort when someone knocked on the shop door. He stood up, exchanging frowns with George. They always closed the shop up during their lunch hour, and their wards kept away particularly rude customers. It was probably an emergency, then.  
  
Harry already had his wand in hand as he rounded the corner of the counter, but a second later, he stopped. Malfoy stood outside the door. Alone this time, it looked like. Well, aside from the enormous gift with white wrapping and a silver bow in his hand. He was frowning at the door as though it and not his gift was the weird thing in this picture.  
  
Well, no, the strangest thing, if Harry thought about it, was that the wards had let Malfoy this close in the first place. He slid his wand into his holster and moved closer, studying Malfoy’s face. The wards would have picked up on hostile intent.  
  
But they would allow someone who had visited his home through them, he remembered belatedly. They’d had a bit of a problem with Neville and Luna when they had the wards set to only allow blood family through, so they’d altered them. Harry hadn’t thought of that particular fact when he invited Malfoy and Scorpius over to his house.  
  
He still wasn’t sorry he’d done it, though. No matter what kind of awkward conversation he would have to have with George later.  
  
He opened the door. Malfoy’s face relaxed when he saw Harry, and he held out the gift with a bow that Harry found irritatingly appealing. “I brought your gift,” he said. “My apologies for it taking more than a week. I had to search hard to find what I was looking for.”  
  
“Thank you,” said Harry, taking the box and staring at it curiously. When he hadn’t heard from Malfoy, he had pretty much decided he  _wouldn’t_ hear, and the box was almost as big as his head. When he shook it, it rattled.  
  
“Harry. What’s this, then?”  
  
George’s voice, near his right shoulder, was calm, but no one who had spent time around George in the past few years would have been reassured by hearing him speak like that. Harry just glanced at him, though, as though this was all perfectly normal. It would have to be, if he wanted to continue to see Scorpius, and if accepting the gift obligated him to Malfoy in some way. “I had Malfoy and his son over for lunch last week. He said he would bring me a gift, and now he has.”  
  
“If it’s presents you want, Mum would be delighted to give you some,” said George, and tried to trade glares with Malfoy. As seemed to be his nature, Malfoy refused to cooperate, instead looking at Harry as though he was the only person in the shop.  
  
“Don’t shake it too hard,” said Malfoy. “You’ll shatter it, and that would be unfortunate.”  
  
Harry looked up with a smile. “Is it a mirror?”  
  
Malfoy’s mouth fell open ungracefully. Harry chuckled and opened the box. “Just the way you worded it,” he explained.  
  
Inside was a small mirror, an oval of glass without a handle or a frame. Harry wasn’t sure how to pick it up, so he just scooped it up in one hand and looked at Malfoy. The mirror had begun to glow a soft, steady yellow when he touched it, but he didn’t feel any warmth or sparks from it.  
  
“It’s a mirror designed to tell you when you’ve gone too far,” said Malfoy, his tongue back under control again. “Magical exhaustion will make it glow green. Illness, red. If you’re simply physically exhausted, blue.”  
  
Harry nodded. “And yellow?”  
  
“It’s getting used to you.” The yellow glow vanished as Malfoy spoke the next words, and he nodded. “The enchantments I laid on it made it responsive only to the touch of one person. Otherwise, the balance of the magic gets thrown off, and it responds to too many people.”  
  
Harry smiled, pleased. A lot of the time, it was true, he did push himself too hard, and Malfoy wouldn’t always be around to tell him when he did, and sometimes his friends would tell him, but other times, they were too involved in the horrors of the war. “Thanks, Malfoy. This is pretty useful.”  
  
Malfoy squinted at Harry. Something was wrong or off with his reaction, Harry supposed. He didn’t know the pure-blood custom that he’d violated or not paid enough attention to this time, though, so he did the best he could to make up for it, and reached out and squeezed Malfoy’s hand. “You made this yourself?”  
  
“The magic. I bought the glass, of course.”  
  
Harry held back the remark he wanted to make about how apparently knowing how to Transfigure or make glass was beneath a Malfoy’s dignity, and said, “It must have taken you a long time. Thanks again.” He held the glass up to his face, but it didn’t glow at all. Good. There had been a bunch of sneezing kids in the shop yesterday, and he was afraid that he might have got a cold.  
  
“You’re welcome.” Malfoy still squinted at him, and didn’t say anything, and didn’t retreat, standing there with his arms folded, and George was humming away at Harry’s shoulder like one of those artificial beehives they’d invented last year, so Harry thought it was a good idea to just ask outright.  
  
“Why did you decide to give this to me in particular? And lay down all the spells and do all the work and stuff?”  
  
“Will you leave the shop if you’re going to talk to someone who nearly got my brother killed?” George asked loudly.  
  
“Yes,” said Harry, and dropped the mirror back into its box and stepped out the front door, leaving George to gape behind him. A second later, the door slammed. Harry didn’t care. He would do what he could to help George when he was suffering from grief for Fred, but there were other times that George pushed too far and needed to be reminded that the whole world didn’t revolve around him.  
  
Malfoy turned to walk down Diagon Alley beside him, one eye on him and one on the rest of the street. “Seriously, it’s a great gift,” said Harry. “And I don’t think I’d have the magical expertise to do it. But why?”  
  
Malfoy frowned at nothing, his fingers tapping on his leg. Finally, he said, “Because you were the first person who was nice to me in a normal way in a long time. To  _me_. I know you like Scorpius, but I can tell the difference between people who only serve me because they think my son is adorable and people who help me because I’m a human being.”  
  
“You’re talking about defending you from Natalia? Because I haven’t really been nice to you other than that.”  
  
“You still had us over for lunch when you could have told us to fuck off,” Malfoy whispered. “You care for your friends, but you don’t let them control your life. As much as I had assumed,” he added, giving Harry a haughty look.  
  
Harry nodded back with a knowing grin. “You still think they control my life to a ridiculous extent.”  
  
“I’ve been reading newspaper stories on you in the intervals when I wasn’t caring for Scorpius or working on the mirror.” Malfoy turned to face him. “Why are your friends the ones who are still suffering from nightmares and illnesses and trouble from the war without being under the care of Mind-Healers or Healers? Don’t tell me they can’t afford the care.”  
  
“So, is there a pure-blood custom about rewarding bluntness with bluntness?” Harry carefully put the box with the mirror down next to him and looked Malfoy in the eye. “That seems to be what you’re doing.”  
  
Malfoy flushed, a long tide of crimson down from his neck to his shoulders, and looked away. “I still want to know the answer. And it seems to me that your friends are the  _only_ ones who never take advantage of Healers.”  
  
“Oh, they have,” said Harry. “But it’s hard to get excellent care from the Healers when you have mediwitches and mediwizards swooning, because they’re so excited to meet a war hero, or refusing to treat you because of the negative publicity St. Mungo’s might suffer if they do something wrong, or spending all their time officiously bustling around and trying to get you to donate to them.”  
  
A faint frown line appeared between Malfoy’s eyebrows. “You have the same problem I do, in reverse?”  
  
Harry nodded. “George tried to talk to a few people, friends of his, contacts he’d made through ordering ingredients for pranks, in the year after Fred’s death. A lot of them refused to talk to him about it at all. They only had business relationships. Or they blamed him for surviving when their family members had died. Or they had Death Eater relatives and they blamed him for them going to prison.”  
  
“They should blame  _you,_  if they were going to blame anyone.”  
  
“But George was the one they could get at,” said Harry. “The one who was in contact with them. And by then, the papers were already reporting that I didn’t give a fuck about the people who were trying to condemn me for not being a good little martyr and not sacrificing my life to save theirs. George was hurt, though. He was angry. He got in some fights with people and arrested several times. It was a lot more satisfying for people who wanted to see a reaction.”  
  
Harry looked away. It was still hard to remember that year after the war, the hardest one. George was being arrested constantly, there was the haunted look in Molly’s eyes, he and Ginny were going through everything that had happened between them, he was trying to explain being a Horcrux to Ron and Hermione when they were suffering from their own nightmares and problems, he had people yelling at him from left and right trying to make him fix things, he was testifying for some people like Malfoy, the Wizengamot and the Ministry wanted him to be their mascot, and he had ex-Death Eaters trying to see if they could assassinate him or hurt one of his friends.  
  
“You did suffer, after all.”  
  
“I never denied I did. It just wasn’t as much as some of my friends did.”  
  
“How can that be?” Malfoy shifted his weight, and brought Harry’s eyes back to him. “You were the one who mostly fought the Dark Lord.”  
  
Harry snorted. “I wasn’t on that quest alone, you know. Ron and Hermione were with me every step of the way.” So, all right, there was the Forest of Dean, but Ron had already acknowledged and apologized for that numerous times, the way that George had for getting arrested, and Harry didn’t want to stir up old ghosts. “Snape got me information that was vital to the war and my survival. Dumbledore manipulated a lot from behind the scenes, but he was also the one who left instructions with Snape for what I had to do in the end. I won the war with the help of a lot of people. Including you, and your connection with the Elder Wand.”  
  
“Let’s say that I believe you. You and your friends should be equally affected.”  
  
“What, do you have money on one of those stupid bets about when I’m going to go mental and start killing people or something?” Harry asked, and shook his head. “I can be affected as much as them without being affected in the same  _way_ , you know. And so can the rest of the wizarding world. The war was this huge psychic wound. The first war was probably the same way, but I didn’t grow up with it and see the scars that one left. I think a lot of people are like me. They were luckier or they were more resilient or whatever, and they’re living life and caring for their families who weren’t as lucky.”  
  
Malfoy’s face wrinkled into a new kind of frown. “I suppose that you could describe me that way. I have been raising Scorpius on my own, without much advice from my parents.”  
  
“Well, they’re abroad. What advice could they give you? Unless they send you owl post.”  
  
“Post by mynah and parrot, more often,” said Malfoy absently, and then shook his head. “But I don’t think we’re the same. When I saw the chance for something new, someone who might treat me and Scorpius the way I wanted, I took it. You would have ignored the chance.”  
  
Harry shrugged. “I try not to cause my friends pain. I think this is going to. That doesn’t mean that I’ll let them make me stop talking to you or Scorpius. But it does mean that I wasn’t going to seek you out.”  
  
More deep-eyed squinting at him. Harry endured that patiently. He thought he understood Malfoy now. He was lonely. He had his son, but his wife had divorced him years ago, maybe the year Scorpius was born, and he wanted friends. It was natural that if he really did think Harry had been treating him normally, he would reach out. He probably wouldn’t if he’d had had as many friends left as Harry had.  
  
“You should know,” said Malfoy abruptly, “that Scorpius wanted very much to come with me today. But I wanted to see what you would do if you saw me alone, without him. If you would really be as cordial.”  
  
“Does blunt and uncomfortable count as cordial?”  
  
“You know what I mean.”  
  
“Yeah. But I don’t know if you see it the same way. You’re a bit of a mystery, Malfoy, pure-blood customs and all that.”  
  
“The pure-blood customs aren’t followed very often anymore,” Malfoy said in a low voice, his eyes going deeper than ever. At least he was no longer squinting, which Harry was glad about. He was afraid that Malfoy’s eyes might stick that way. “But they’re real, and I’m curious to see if you will follow the next one.”  
  
“What next one?” Harry held up his hands. “I’m not looking things up so that I can give you the right gift now, or what the fuck ever.”  
  
“Even if it’s important to me?”  
  
The words were quiet, but the emotion behind them wasn’t, and Harry would have to be shallower than Hermione had once accused Ron of being to miss it. He sighed. “All right, yes, fine. But it’s not like I have books of pure-blood customs sitting around my house. Where am I supposed to look?”  
  
“I understand that you have standing access to Hogwarts’s library,” said Malfoy, looking satisfied, “based on your friendship with the Headmaster. I would begin there.” He nodded to Harry. “I will tell Scorpius you wished to see him. Thank you for accepting the gift.”  
  
He Apparated before Harry could ask whether not accepting was even an  _option_. Harry picked up the box with the mirror again and looked at it thoughtfully.  
  
Malfoy was a little weird, sure. Him and his customs and his wild ability to take a chance on something so small that Harry would have thought he’d give it up long before now. But Harry also thought that he could honor that daring and that fierce devotion to raising his son and trying to find some space for himself at the same time. He didn’t want to discourage it. Malfoy could be a good person, and there were too few good people in the world. Harry firmly believed that was a large part of the reason the war had happened.  
  
And he could be a good role model for Scorpius, besides.  
  
So Harry went to owl Neville and ask when he could come by Hogwarts and look at the library books for pure-blood customs. As a favor to a friend.


	6. Researches in Libraries

“You know that you’re always welcome, mate.” Neville’s voice was low and slow, and he stood there with his arms folded behind his desk. Harry looked at him, wondering what was wrong, and Neville continued, “But you’re doing this for  _Malfoy?_ Because he’s been doing weird things around you?”  
  
“He’s been claiming these pure-blood customs give him the right to give me gifts and treat me to lunch and come to lunch at my house and confuse the hell out of me,” Harry corrected him. “He said that I should make the proper response to the last gift he gave me, and to do that, I need to look up pure-blood customs. This is the best place.”  
  
“What was the last gift?” Neville looked as if he was about to charge out and hunt Malfoy down at the point of a wand.  
  
Harry lifted a hand. Maybe Neville thought Malfoy had disturbed George too much. He was George’s friend, too, and Harry knew George often firecalled Neville to listen to the latest reports of pranks discovered in Hogwarts. “A mirror. He enchanted it so that I would know when I was exhausted or sick. Magically exhausted, too. He has a bee up his arse about that. He came to lunch at my house right after I’d been taking care of Ron because he got hit by that Disease Curse.”  
  
Neville slowly relaxed, muscle by muscle, in his shoulders. He had grown taller and stronger even than Ron, and Harry sometimes forgot what an intimidating sight he made. It probably helped him to subdue students who thought the youngest Hogwarts Headmaster in centuries was easy to get around, if they didn’t already respect him because Neville had put more labor into rebuilding and improving the school in the last ten years than everyone else put together. “A mirror is all right.”  
  
“All right?” Harry touched the pocket where he’d put the mirror. He was carrying it around with him, although he’d had to cast some protective enchantments on his clothes so it wouldn’t break if it jounced against something. “I think it’s pretty bloody impressive that he put so much work into it, actually.”  
  
“I mean, it’s not like it was jewelry,” said Neville. “That would be bad.”  
  
“Why?” Harry threw up his hands when Neville hesitated to tell him. “Are you saying that these customs really  _exist?_ I thought Malfoy was making them up as an excuse to spend time with me.”  
  
“He might have made up some of them,” said Neville, and sent Harry the look Harry would have bet he used on children caught with banned Wheezes. “But a gift that you use your own magic on is serious. A mirror is a good gift, a thoughtful one, but near the bottom.”  
  
“Of  _what_?”  
  
“The hierarchy of gifts that you give someone you want to be intimate with,” Neville said. “Jewelry is near the top. It indicates that he would be contemplating—well, marriage or something of the kind. There are gifts that ask for protection over children, or for a truce, or an alliance, or deeper friendship. Maybe you were never the sort of friends who fought beside each other in battle. The gifts that you give can ask for that.”  
  
Harry shook his head, dazed. He had thought a present was just a present. Maybe Malfoy was giving it to be polite.   
  
But then again, Malfoy had said that he had seized on the chance to get close to one person who treated him decently. He had been telling the truth all along, but also teasing Harry, kind of enjoying the fact that he didn’t know anything about pure-blood customs and would accept anything Malfoy offered just because it was a gift.  
  
 _Thank fuck it wasn’t a ring, or anything._ That was because, if Harry found out afterwards that he had accepted a weird marriage proposal or something, in Malfoy’s eyes and the eyes of some other people, just by accepting a gift, Scorpius would have been an orphan. And Harry would have hated that.  
  
“Fine,” said Harry. “What does a mirror ask for?”  
  
“A mirror that you used your own magic for?” Neville shrugged helplessly. “Honestly, I don’t know. It wasn’t something I ever expected to use. Gran made sure that I knew those customs more because she thought it was the sort of thing I  _should_ know.” Neville looked out the window for a second, which showed a steady fall of rain. “I know that Gran wants me to be proud of being a pure-blood and all, but I am going to choose my  _own_ spouse and my  _own_ friends.”  
  
Harry put a hand on Neville’s arm in silence. He knew that Neville had quarreled with his grandmother a few months ago and things had been bad between him and Augusta since, but Harry hadn’t known what about. This might be it.  
  
Neville shook himself and came back to the present. “But this is a combination of a mirror, which doesn’t mean much, traditionally, and his own magic, which is more special. You probably do need to go and look it up in a book to find out.”  
  
“Great,” Harry said, drawing the word out to make Neville grin. “Fine. Thanks for letting me use the library. I’ll see you later.” Then he paused dramatically and pointed his finger at Neville. “And part of you choosing your own friends is that they get to choose  _you_ , too. I hereby invite you to come over to my house tomorrow and watch one of those concerts you like on the telly. You’d better not be late.”  
  
Neville’s smile was a remarkable thing. “I won’t be late, if you tell me the time.”  
  
“Nine-o’clock,” Harry said, and waved his hand like Malfoy would, and left Neville laughing.  
  
*  
  
Harry rolled his eyes and laid the book aside.  _I think a lot of these pure-bloods just made up these customs so they could laugh silently over Muggleborns taking them seriously._  
  
Why would a certain kind of dinner that lasted two hours count as a marriage proposal but one that lasted three hours was a declaration of hostilities between two families? Why would it matter if you were served chicken or fish? Why was a bracelet a more serious gift than a ring? The books Harry found explained the customs and what the gifts meant, but not why anyone would be mental enough to follow them, or how they had come to be in the first place.  
  
 _I want to go along with this,_ Harry thought, as he took up yet another tome.  _I do want to be Malfoy’s friend. But fuck if I’m going to be his husband or his patsy or obey these customs if they actually go against something I believe in._  
  
He was no mental pure-blood. If Malfoy tried to say that he should be, Harry was going to wave his Muggle relatives around like a shield. Malfoy had once put a lot of emphasis on blood, even if he didn’t now. Harry would point out that he wasn’t “pure” day and night if it would get him out of a silly situation.  
  
The next book was at least about the “hierarchy” of gifts that Neville had mentioned, and had a whole chart of crossing possibilities, talking about what a gift meant when it was made of certain materials. Harry sat up more alertly and turned the pages.  _Here_ , he thought, he would find out what a mirror made of glass but also enchanted with the creator’s own magic meant.  
  
It still took him a long time to find it. At first, all the charts seemed to assume that the mirrors were made of glass, but then Harry caught a reference to silver and realized he was assuming that pure-bloods were sane. And more experience with the books ought to have taught him they weren’t. He sighed and went back.  
  
So. Glass mirrors where someone had enchanted them with their own magic but they had bought the glass. And no frame. That was what he was looking for.  
  
It still took him a long time to squeeze his way through the charts, but he finally found a little mention of it off to the side in one of the charts.  _A glass mirror without a frame_  was listed, and there were options for the magic, and the kinds of magic. Harry flipped pages, frowning and grumbling at the small type.  
  
The first line of description didn’t really reassure him.  
  
 _An exclusive friendship._  
  
Harry scowled. If that meant he wasn’t supposed to be friends with anyone else, then no, thank you.   
  
But he went ahead and read the description before he dismissed it. So far, several of the things Malfoy had done had turned out to be more reasonable and less capricious than Harry had thought they were.  
  
 _An exclusive friendship declares that the giver of the gift desires a friendship which will include certain aspects not covered by either the gifter’s or the giftee’s current friendships. If one has only casual friends, this is an invitation to a deep friendship. If one’s friends all live mostly on the other side of the world, this will be an invitation from someone who lives close. The enchantments placed on the mirror given as a gift will give a clue as to the nature of the relationship and closeness desired._  
  
Harry rolled his eyes. Even he, with his almost-zero knowledge of pure-blood culture, didn’t have to concentrate long to figure that out. Malfoy thought his friends didn’t care enough about his health, so he had given Harry a mirror that would.  
  
Not that that told Harry whether this was a friendship he really wanted, or what Malfoy wanted in return. Did he want to be the caretaker, or did he want Harry also to interest himself in Malfoy’s health? And what kind of basis was health for a friendship, anyway? Harry would have been bored as hell if his friendships had only concerned nightmares and trauma from the war. They might look that way to Malfoy because of what he had seen, but he was on the outside. He didn’t know the truth.  
  
 _And what kind of friendship is it to scold each other when we’re sick and say “Fine, thanks,” when we’re feeling well?_  
  
Scowling a little, Harry began to flip through the pages of the book looking for the gift that he was supposed to give in return. He wondered if there was anything that would say, “I’d like to be your friend, but I don’t want to just talk about being sick all the time.”  
  
And then it turned out there was.  
  
Harry leaned back from the book and laughed long enough to make Madam Pince come around the corner and frown at him.  _Fucking pure-bloods._  
  
*  
  
“Potter, you really shouldn’t have.”  
  
Harry paused. He had come to Malfoy Manor’s gates after owling to make sure that it was okay and Malfoy would be at home and willing to receive him. He’d thought that was the polite thing to do.  
  
And now Malfoy was standing at the gates, his lips twisting as he stared at the red box in Harry’s arms. He had one hand on the bars of the gates, but he hadn’t opened them yet. He gave a swift glance at Harry’s face, then turned away.  
  
Obviously, Harry had done something wrong. Maybe it was the size of the box. Maybe it was the day he had shown up; maybe the moon was in Scorpio or something. Maybe Malfoy had meant something else with that gift after all and Harry had been wrong that he wanted a present in return.  
  
Either way, any way, Harry was suddenly violently disgusted.  _Fucking pure-bloods._  
  
“Fine,” he said shortly, since Malfoy was walking away from him up the path that led to the Manor and showed no sign of opening the gates to let Harry in. “Then I’ll leave it here, and you can take it or burn it or fuck yourself with it. I don’t care.” He dropped the red-wrapped box on the ground and turned to Apparate.  
  
“Wait!”  
  
That was Malfoy, hurrying back towards him and wildly waving his hands. At least he looked like a human being instead of a polished statue now. Harry folded his arms and stared at him.  
  
“Saying that you shouldn’t have is a polite convention.” Malfoy’s face was pink. “It doesn’t mean I was rejecting you!”  
  
“And turning your back on me and walking away behind your  _locked_ gates, after you looked at my gift like it was a flobberworm?”  
  
Malfoy’s face turned from pink to red. “The gates are open,” he muttered. “I thought you’d open them and follow me.”  
  
Harry flung one hand across his brow. “Without an  _invitation?_ All those books said that was horribly rude, Malfoy. And you seem to care what books say.”  
  
Malfoy did some more scowling. Then he lowered his gaze to the box. “Did you discover what I was trying to say with the mirror?”  
  
“Something about an exclusive friendship and health.” Harry leaned one shoulder hard against the gates. They gave a little—they weren’t locked—but then straightened against his pressure. Yes, they were still blocked with magic. Harry rolled his eyes, and he didn’t do it subtly. “But I’m not interested in talking nothing but magical exhaustion and sicknesses with you. It sounds boring.”  
  
Malfoy winced a little, openly stricken. Harry watched him critically. So he was stricken. That didn’t mean he was the right choice for a friend. He might be stricken by the way that Harry was disparaging his precious pure-blood customs, instead of anything that related to Harry himself.  
  
“No,” Malfoy whispered. “It was a silver mirror. Not glass, Potter.”  
  
“You  _said_ it was glass!” Harry yelled. He could feel his temper waking up, something it didn’t do much anymore. But for Merlin’s sake, he was sick of these games. He had admired Malfoy’s courage in coming up to him and trying to claim a friendship, but he didn’t admire the way he hid behind customs and teased Harry to find out about them and then was horrified when he didn’t get it exactly right. “I don’t know what you  _want,_ Malfoy! Why can’t you say it like anyone else?”  
  
“Because it would sound silly.”  
  
That pulled Harry up a bit. Malfoy’s face did look as red as if he had taken a steam bath. But Harry couldn’t recall what he had read about silver mirrors, and he wasn’t about to go back to Hogwarts and look it up to make Malfoy comfortable.  
  
“Fine,” said Harry. “I promise I won’t laugh. But tell me what you want, because I looked up what a mirror made of glass you bought but didn’t enchant and used your own magic on would mean, and it wasn’t what you meant, and I’m sorry, but talking about glass was deliberately misleading me.”  
  
“Not deliberately.” Malfoy sighed and faced him, and at least Harry trusted the weary look in his eyes. “I want a friendship with you where you do things with me you don’t do with anyone else.”  
  
“That’s impossible,” said Harry automatically. “I visit with all of my friends and talk to them and connect with their kids when they have them. I can’t give you anything that I haven’t already given to someone else.”  
  
“But you haven’t started over with anyone else, have you?” Malfoy took a step up to the gates as though he was going to pass right through them without bothering to open them. “You haven’t reconciled with them and looked up pure-blood customs for them? You haven’t learned a new way of life with them?”  
  
Harry cocked his head, intrigued. “So you’re, what, asking for my pure-blood custom friendship-virginity?”  
  
Malfoy laughed, and then looked surprised at himself for laughing. You were probably only supposed to do it for two seconds and then at a certain pitch, Harry thought.   
  
“Yes,” said Malfoy. “I think—this is the best way that I know of reaching out to someone new, Potter. The customs guide certain things and mean certain things are true. Otherwise, I would be far too terrified of making a mistake to reach out to you at all.”  
  
Harry looked at him thoughtfully. “Fine, but I don’t think it’ll work anyway, if you get angry at me for not knowing things you already know.”  
  
“Get to know me as an adult,” said Malfoy. “The customs are—you can learn them, I’d like to teach them to you, but they’re a side-note. This is a chance to get to know someone who you knew as a child and didn’t really understand. For both of us,” he added, when Harry opened his mouth to contest who didn’t know  _who_ here.  
  
Harry held back the comment. He had known that Malfoy had grown up and paid his debt with a year in Azkaban. He had thought Malfoy was afraid of a lot of things when he was a kid, and Malfoy had just admitted that was still true as an adult.  
  
But he understood what Malfoy was saying. And honestly, it didn’t sound bad. It sounded interesting, getting to spend time with Scorpius and someone who was so different from any of Harry’s other friends that it was hard to predict how he’d react. More friends wasn’t a bad thing if he didn’t make Harry abandon any of the friends he already had.  
  
Harry wanted one thing to be clear, though.  
  
“As long as you don’t tease me with a custom again,” he said. “No more saying that mirrors are glass if they’re silver. No more being disappointed because I don’t understand something the first time. No more thinking I’ll know what to do when I’ve never heard of this custom in my life.” He paused, considering Malfoy. “No more acting like I should be pure-blood already, when I’m not.”  
  
Malfoy nodded once, firmly. “Then do you want to come in? I suppose I owe you something in return for not making the purpose of my gift clear.”  
  
“I suppose you do,” said Harry, and ambled through the gates. He refused to think of what Ron and Hermione and George would say when they found out that he’d visited Malfoy. They were a huge part of his life, but not the whole thing, and they weren’t here right now. Harry was the one on the spot, who had to make the decisions.  
  
 _And a little willingness on either side isn’t a bad thing._


	7. Inside Malfoy Manor

  
“Mr. Potter! You came to visit!”  
  
Scorpius’s face was almost incandescent as he ran towards Harry, across the floor of an enormous dining room that had only a tiny round table with a few chairs in the corner. Malfoy had been leading Harry on a kind of tour, but he stopped now, and Harry dropped down to Scorpius’s level so he could reach out his arms.  
  
 _If that’s okay._ But a check on Malfoy from the corner of Harry’s eye showed him benignly smiling, so it seemed to be.  
  
Scorpius surprised Harry by not only running into his arms but hugging him back, tightly enough that Harry wheezed. Then he sprinted away and grabbed Harry’s arm. “This is only the dining room, we can eat anywhere,” he said, waving his hand. “I want you to see my room! Come on!”  
  
“Did you ask permission to show Mr. Potter your rooms, Scorpius?” Malfoy asked, in a mild enough tone that Harry didn’t know what he meant at first, and thought maybe there were house-elves cleaning Scorpius’s rooms who needed advance notice.  
  
But Scorpius sighed and turned to face his father. “Please may I show Mr. Potter my rooms?”  
  
“Yes,” said Malfoy, after a long pause in which Harry wondered if Malfoy was trying to punish Harry or Scorpius by withholding permission. “Next time, however, please don’t interrupt me in the middle of a sentence.”  
  
Scorpius nodded without looking horrified, which Harry thought was probably the best outcome for all concerned, and dragged Harry towards the far side of the dining room again. Harry went with him, looking back and forth. Honestly, you could set up a Quidditch pitch in this room and only have to slow down the brooms a little.  
  
He presumed there was some reason for the absence of one of the fancy long tables like he would have expected the Malfoys to have, but when he looked over at Malfoy, there was a tight expression on his face that prevented Harry from asking.  
  
*  
  
Scorpius’s room turned out to be more like  _rooms_ : a bathroom, a bedroom, a playroom that probably had a fancier name like “Nursery of the Malfoy Heirs,” and a wardrobe that took up more space than Harry’s kitchen. Harry noticed that everything was done in light blue and green. He wondered if Malfoy or Scorpius had picked that out, but saw that the wardrobe, which Scorpius jerked open to take out Golden, was filled with blue-green robes, too. Well, Scorpius probably didn’t mind the color, at least.  
  
“I know how to make him do  _everything_ ,” said Scorpius, turning around with Golden in his hands. “Except fly backwards. How do you do that, Mr. Potter?”  
  
“You can’t do that with this bird,” Harry said, bending down to study Golden and make sure he had that right. Yes, it was. George had invented a few birds later that could do more complicated things, but Scorpius’s model was an earlier one that had only simple flight and the other tricks Scorpius had discovered already.  
  
Scorpius stared at him, then looked miserably down at Golden. Harry sighed. “I can get you another bird that does that,” he offered.  
  
“I don’t want another bird,” said Scorpius, in a deep, soulful voice that reminded Harry of how fiercely he had been attached to his own few, pathetic toys as a child. “I want Golden to do that. I want him to do  _everything_.”  
  
“Let’s see, then,” said Harry, and took Golden away to look at it. Scorpius hovered nearby, and Malfoy was in the doorway. Harry knew that without turning his head. Sometimes instincts one didn’t really want lingered.  
  
The more Harry studied the bird, the more certain he was. He  _could_ make Golden fly backwards, if that was what Scorpius wanted, but it would involve casting a spell on the bird. He didn’t know if Scorpius would want that when he seemed to see the bird as its own independent entity.  
  
“How do you feel about me using magic on Golden to make him fly backwards?” he asked, one eye on Scorpius to see if there was any anger in his face.  
  
But Scorpius only smiled. “Can you do that? What spell would you use to make a bird fly backwards?” He glanced over his shoulder at Malfoy. “Daddy hasn’t shown me that one yet!”  
  
“It’s not a spell that you would need often,” Malfoy murmured. Harry, taking out his wand, hesitated a moment. Malfoy sounded almost defensive.  
  
Maybe he didn’t like Harry getting close to his son, either.  
  
But Harry had already made a promise, and he was going to keep it. “He’s right, it’s not common,” he told Scorpius, and then tapped his wand in the middle of the bird’s back, accessing the flow of magic that he and George had created in the first place to make the bird fly at an owner’s commands—as long as they were polite. The flow needed to be altered in a few places, there and there and  _there_. Harry stepped back and extended Golden to Scorpius again. “There. Now try it and see if he’ll fly backwards.”  
  
Scorpius held Golden up, his eyes fastened on the bird, absolutely enthralled, and said, “Golden, fly  _backwards_ , please.” Then he tossed it up into the air.  
  
Harry realized he was holding his breath. He shook his head, annoyed at himself. If this didn’t work, he would just tinker with the bird until it did. It wasn’t like this was the only chance he would ever have to gratify Scorpius.  
  
But Golden jerked, hesitated, and then began to row in a smooth reverse circle over Scorpius’s head. Scorpius laughed and lifted his hands to catch it, but the bird zoomed faster than he’d apparently reckoned on, and Scorpius had to charge after it. Harry relaxed when he saw that, smiling.  
  
“Thank you.”  
  
Harry cocked his head. He’d been involved enough in watching Scorpius that he hadn’t really noticed Malfoy moving up behind him. “You’re welcome.”  
  
“You are absurdly good with children for having none of your own.” Malfoy spoke without taking his eyes off his son, his fingers flicking and dancing as though he assumed he would have to intervene and take the bird away. Harry shook his head tolerantly. Malfoy was a bit overprotective, not that Harry was going to tell him that to his face. “Or do you play with your godson often enough for that?” His gaze came back to Harry’s face as if it had never left.  
  
“Yes, I play with Teddy a lot, although he’s older than Scorpius,” said Harry. “And I think Teddy would like to meet his cousins.”  
  
Malfoy jerked as if Harry had slapped him. Then he murmured, “My mother cut off contact with my aunt years ago.”  
  
“So what? You aren’t your mum.” Harry paused, as a more complex and disturbing thought came to him. “Or do you still think Teddy is rubbish because his grandfather was a Muggleborn and his father was a werewolf?”  
  
“You have no idea what I want and what I believe.”  
  
“Yes, I do,” Harry disagreed. “I know that you want the best for Scorpius, and you want my friendship. I know you cling to these pure-blood customs not because you believe in them, but because they give you a structure, and advice on how to react. That’s the most straightforward explanation for what’s happening with you, and the explanation I can accept best.”  
  
Malfoy jerked again, stared at him, and then said, “I don’t believe in blood purity.”  
  
“Then what’s your objection to introducing Scorpius to Teddy?”  
  
“He would want to know why he never met him before. And how do I know that your Lupin would be kind to him?”  
  
“You’re not that much of a coward that you can’t face up to a kid’s questions, especially not if you sought me out,” Harry said firmly. “And Teddy is kind to and interested in anybody I bring to play with him. But I think that he would be especially interested to meet blood kin. He’s used to not having any except Andromeda. Even if he ended up not being best friends with Scorpius, he wouldn’t mistreat him.”  
  
Malfoy was silent again, watching as Scorpius caught Golden and made him fly in circles, glancing over to make sure that they were watching him. Harry nodded reassuringly to him, which made Scorpius beam and take off again.  
  
“I—may have lied to Scorpius more than not simply taking him to visit his relatives,” Malfoy murmured. “I may have—told him that none of his relatives on his mother’s side were left alive.”  
  
Harry closed his eyes. The words struck him harder than he thought Malfoy could know; they sounded like something the Dursleys might have said, if Harry had had any living family left besides them and they knew about it.  
  
“Are you ashamed enough of that to make good now?” he asked instead. “Teddy and Scorpius should know each other.”  
  
“I notice that  _you_ never contacted me and proposed this before now.”  
  
“Because I thought there was no way in hell that you would agree to it,” Harry said simply.  
  
Malfoy hesitated again. Then he muttered, “All right. Scorpius will meet his cousin and his—his great-aunt. But give me a little while to tell him.”  
  
Harry nodded, and squeezed Malfoy’s hand, and said no more. It had occurred to him as he spoke that Malfoy would also be meeting his aunt and one of his cousins, but he might not like to have Harry notice that, what with his touchy pride. Harry could let it go for now.  
  
*  
  
Lunch was delicious, sparkling fish baked and glazed and salted in a way that Harry had never tasted before, carried in by the house-elves on platters and in different ways until Harry had to fling his hands up in self-defense. Scorpius, who was sitting at the head of the table with Malfoy beside him and watching him, laughed.  
  
“You can’t eat anymore, Mr. Potter?” Scorpius himself was eating from plates little by little, Harry thought, which was the reason he wasn’t full yet. And Malfoy ate enough to seem substantial but not enough to fill him up. Harry decided that was probably due to special training Malfoy had received as a child. Harry’s training as a child regarding food had been rather different.  
  
Harry leaned back in his chair and folded his hands over his belly. “No, it’s too much,” he said. “But it’s very good, and I look forward to having lunch here sometime in the future.”  
  
He looked directly at Malfoy as he spoke, and saw Malfoy flush. Well. Hard to tell from that whether he intended to invite Harry back in the future or not, although Harry assumed he would, if only to gratify Scorpius. Malfoy toyed with a glass and looked away instead, so Harry drank from his own glass of water and tried to answer Scorpius’s questions about running a prank shop.  
  
“No, it’s not that exciting. We don’t have explosions all the time,” Harry finally said, and Scorpius looked so disappointed that he laughed. “Would you  _want_ to work in a place that has explosions all the time?”  
  
“Yes,” said Scorpius firmly. “I only saw one explosion in Daddy’s lab, but it was fun!”  
  
Harry couldn’t keep his eyes from darting over to Malfoy’s face, even though he had made himself that private promise to try and leave Malfoy alone. He wasn’t sure what surprised him more, that Malfoy could make  _mistakes_ brewing potions or that he had allowed Scorpius into the lab to watch them.  
  
“Since that explosion, I’ve kept Scorpius at a safe distance,” said Malfoy at his most formal, apparently deciding that Harry blamed him for Scorpius ever being in danger at all. “And I have told him that he  _cannot_ observe me without alerting me that he was there. I saw him from the corner of my eye and got distracted.”  
  
“No, that’s a good idea,” Harry agreed. “I wouldn’t want a kid too near while we were making the pranks that could explode.”  
  
“But why can you be in danger and I can’t?” Scorpius turned around and stared at him. “Daddy said that you were in danger all the time! If you could be in danger when you were a kid,  _I_ should be able to!”  
  
Harry blinked a couple of times, and wondered what stories Malfoy  _had_ been telling Scorpius. He wasn’t saying anything right now, and Harry had to be the one to answer the question, since Malfoy wasn’t stepping forwards to volunteer. “I wasn’t in danger when I was your age. And I was only in danger at Hogwarts because the Dark Lord kept trying to kill me.”  
  
“You mean Voldemort?”  
  
Harry jerked a little. He hadn’t expected Malfoy to use the name with his son. Malfoy had changed more than he’d thought.  
  
Malfoy gave him a tight little smile and gestured back at Scorpius, so Harry turned around to study him. “Yes, I mean Voldemort,” said Harry. “But he only started hunting me after I came into the wizarding world, you know. That was when I was eleven. I grew up in the Muggle world until then, and I was perfectly safe.”  
  
“ _Muggles_?” Scorpius wriggled closer to him. “Do they have all these inventions that you can talk to? Daddy says they do!”  
  
So Harry spent part of the afternoon trying to explain to Scorpius how phones worked, and how they were similar to and different from firecalls, and what a telly was, and even a bit about computers, although Harry himself wasn’t that familiar with those. Dudley had only got a computer and really used it after Harry started going to Hogwarts. When he was back, it wasn’t like he got to touch it.  
  
But what little he could tell Scorpius seemed to fascinate him, and sometimes Scorpius said something about wishing he was a Muggle. Malfoy just sat by and listened to that without comment. Harry approved. He really had matured. He probably knew that Scorpius would never want to give up magic.  
  
“That sounds  _wonderful_ ,” said Scorpius, when Harry had finally come up with the last bit of information he had on computers. He leaned his head on the table and sighed. “You’ve had a lot of adventures, haven’t you, Mr. Potter?”  
  
“When I was a kid, and in the war,” said Harry. “Not so many since the war.”  
  
“But you work in a shop with  _explosions_.”  
  
Since that was true, Harry couldn’t really argue. He was casting around for something else to talk about when Malfoy interrupted with a soft murmur, “Weren’t you going to finish that writing practice for me today, Scorpius?”  
  
Scorpius jumped the way Harry had when he heard Voldemort’s name. Then he turned and looked pleadingly at his father. “But Mr. Potter came over! And I can learn how to write anytime.”  
  
“You’re learning how to write  _now_ ,” said Malfoy. “I told you when I said you could stay at home for school that you had to keep up with your writing and homework.”  
  
Scorpius looked as if he would pout, but Malfoy raised his eyebrows, and Scorpius sighed and said, “ _Fine_.” He turned to Harry and held out his hand. “It was nice seeing you again, Mr. Potter.” He paused. “Will you come over again?”  
  
Harry shook his hand and smiled. “Yes, I will. I have to eat lunch here again and see if I can finish it this time, remember?”  
  
Scorpius brightened. “Oh, right! I hope you do.” He ran out of the room, calling for “Misty.” Harry assumed that was a house-elf who was supposed to help him with his education.   
  
“So.”  
  
Harry turned back to Malfoy and stood up. “That’s my cue to leave, too, isn’t it?”  
  
“I do want Scorpius to work on his writing,” Malfoy said, his eyes clear but burning. “I don’t want him behind when he goes to Hogwarts.” He stood up, gracefully enough. “But before you leave, there’s the little matter of the gift you bought me. I noticed you left it sitting at my gates.”  
  
Harry blinked. “Yeah? It was the wrong gift. I thought you were trying to tell me that you wanted a special friendship based on talking about our health, and I think that’s boring. So I brought a gift that would tell you that while still claiming friendship, but you were trying to say something different with a silver mirror. Why would you want a mistaken gift?”  
  
“It creates an obligation,” said Malfoy. “This time, I am obliged to repay you for the time and energy, and perhaps money, you invested in a mistaken gift. But for that, I need to know what it is.”  
  
Harry looked at him narrowly, then snorted. “And you might want to see it, after all,” he said, and then Summoned the box before Malfoy could say anything. The present settled into his arms, and Harry nodded and presented it gravely to Malfoy.  
  
Malfoy took it and looked as if he barely resisted shaking it. Then he undid the bow on the top with shaking fingers. Harry leaned back. He was going to enjoy this.  
  
Malfoy silently lifted out the mechanical butterfly inside, a lot like Scorpius’s bird, but made of blue-painted steel rather than golden. Malfoy opened his mouth to speak, and the butterfly fluttered its wings and said in a chiming voice, “ _You’ve done a good job raising your son. But why did you never give him bacon?”_  
  
Malfoy stared between Harry and the butterfly. “How did you do that?” he whispered.  
  
Harry grinned. “You forget that I make pranks for a living. It was pretty easy to enchant this butterfly to say certain phrases that applied to you instead of anyone who might purchase it.”  
  
“But it doesn’t sound like your voice.” Malfoy turned the butterfly back and forth, seeming to admire the intense blue and black of the wings. Harry had picked the colors because he liked them and sometimes saw them in butterflies he admired, but he hadn’t known Malfoy would like them, too.  
  
“No. The butterfly gets an enchanted voice, and then I spell it to repeat certain things I say.”  
  
Again Malfoy gave him an intense look, and then he nodded and lowered the butterfly to the table. “I’ll keep it, then. But expect another gift in a week.”  
  
“One with a special meaning, this time?” Harry murmured.  
  
“The special meaning will be embedded in what it is. Custom is satisfied by me returning the obligation.”  
  
Harry was grinning as he shook Malfoy’s hand, too, and left. Perhaps Malfoy could be annoying and controlling at times, but he was a pretty good father, and he might be a pretty good friend.


	8. The Petty and the Great

“George tells me that you went to Malfoy Manor today.”  
  
Harry raised his eyebrows and picked up Rose, who had dashed across the kitchen to him the minute she saw him. She always wanted to be picked up and swung around, and Ron was still too weak to do that for her. “It seems that my great news has preceded me,” he said in sepulchral tones, and then began to spin with Rose in a circle. She laughed, her hair flying behind her.  
  
“Why would you do something like that?” Hermione’s voice was quiet, and she kept her back turned as she worked at chopping some kind of vegetable onto a plate.  
  
“Because I went there in good faith, carrying what I thought was the next gift in this series of silly pure-blood customs he was telling me existed,” Harry replied, and stood Rose on a chair. His arms were getting tired, but he could play another game she liked. He peered sternly into her eyes, and she started biting her lip, trying futilely not to giggle. “It turned out it was the wrong gift, but Malfoy invited me inside anyway. It wasn’t polite to refuse.”  
  
“But you knew what it would do to me.” Hermione’s head was still turned away from him, but her voice had gone fragile in a way that told Harry exactly what expression she would wear. The tired, haunted one she had when she awoke from the nightmares where Bellatrix Lestrange still tortured her.  
  
“I knew you wouldn’t like me doing it,” Harry said. He wasn’t going to agree that simply walking through the gates of Malfoy Manor had somehow hurt Hermione, because that wasn’t true. If it was, then being friends with Malfoy would also have done it. He ruffled Rose’s hair back from her ears, and she leaned against him, giggling. “But I’ll never ask you to go there. I’ll never even talk to you about being there, if you don’t want me to.”  
  
“ _You still went there._ ”  
  
Harry sighed and settled Rose back on the floor. This was going to be one of  _those_ conversations. “Rose, why don’t you go to your room and find that yellow bird I gave you?” That was one of the birds like Scorpius’s Golden, but Rose was really too young to play with it on her own. “Bring it here, and we’ll fly it.”  
  
Rose clapped her hands and bolted out of the kitchen. Harry watched her go fondly. She wasn’t talking much yet, but she got her point across without it.  
  
He stood up and turned to Hermione, who was looking at him with a pale face probably gone paler since Ron’s illness. Harry felt sorry for her. He wanted to help her. He wanted to make sure that Ron being sick wasn’t too hard on her and Rose.  
  
But he wasn’t going to live his life in perfect accord with the way she wanted him to. He had had minor conflicts with George and Ron in the past about that, especially when he didn’t join the Aurors the way Ron had wanted him to and when he wouldn’t leave George alone in high places on the anniversary of Fred’s death. Only circumstances had kept him from having to confront Hermione about something like that before now.  
  
He lived his life to help his friends, but he didn’t live it for them. It was a distinction that Harry thought had escaped Malfoy, and maybe even Hermione until this moment.  
  
“I’m not going to ask you to associate with Malfoy and Scorpius,” Harry said. Hermione even flinched when he said the name of Malfoy’s son, as if it was the name of a disease that would stalk her. Harry held back a sigh of disgust. “I’ll never talk about them to you. You don’t have to know anything about them.”  
  
“You’re still associating with them,” Hermione said, and turned away to wash her hands.  
  
“I mention the name Lestrange,” Harry said, his voice growing a little harsher. He had tried to help Hermione in the past by talking to her about his own nightmares after fifth year, the ones where Bellatrix killed Sirius bloodily in front of Harry instead of simply casting him through the Veil. Hermione hadn’t been able to stand it, but she had been okay with Harry saying the name “Lestrange” when they worked through her nightmares. “And she was the one who actually tortured you. Why should going to Malfoy Manor be a deal-breaker?”  
  
“I was tortured there!” Hermione slammed down the knife she’d been using to cut the vegetables and turned around. “We were all held prisoner there! I don’t know how you can walk through those fucking gates  _yourself!”  
  
_ Harry glared at her. “No,” he said.  
  
“No what?” He took Hermione aback enough that she blinked at him a little.  
  
“You don’t get to depend on my greater resilience and my immunity to nightmares part of the time, and then say I  _should_ have it the rest,” Harry told her firmly. “I’ll help you, and I’ve never asked for help with my own dreams or memories, because they’re not that severe. But you don’t get to depend on me being strong for you and then tell me I’m insensitive. Not how it works.”  
  
Hermione’s mouth worked, and her hand trembled. She reached for the knife again, but had to step back and cradle her hands to her breast. “And you’ve never accused  _me_ of being insensitive before,” she whispered.  
  
“Yes, I have. That time just after Rose was born when you were yelling at Ron for ever getting you pregnant and how it would be better if both of you were dead, remember? When he was working that case with all those dead pregnant women and children. Damn right I told you off and took Rose for a week.”  
  
Hermione shuddered and held her hands to her face. “I’m sorry that not all of us are as strong as you are and want to make up with our mortal enemies,” she whispered.  
  
“I would never ask you to make up with the Malfoys,” Harry said. Rose came dashing back into the kitchen. Harry was a little surprised she had been able to find the golden bird so fast when her room was so crowded with toys, but he bent down and gravely took it from her. “Watch, Rose. Please fly for me, great bird.”  
  
The bird’s wings fluttered, and it sprang out of his hold and buzzed weakly around the room. Rose stood still and tilted her head back to watch it fly instead of running after it the way Scorpius had. That was another observation that Harry didn’t think he would mention in front of Hermione.  
  
“Just knowing that you’re making up to them…”  
  
“And if I told you that I was serving Pansy Parkinson? That I did that the other day? And a load of fireworks to set off at Blaise Zabini’s wedding?” Wisely, Zabini had contacted Harry to fulfill that order instead of George, but he had still contacted him. “Would you feel the same way?”  
  
Hermione stared at him with stricken eyes. “Not as bad as Malfoy—Harry, he insulted me. And I was tortured in his Manor.”  
  
“So was he,” Harry told her quietly. “Look, Hermione, I already told you that I don’t ever plan on asking you to meet him or talk to him. I won’t pretend that I’m going to ignore him and his son for the rest of our time on Earth because of that. I’m going to protect you and your memories of torture.” He stood up to hug her. “Don’t ask more of me than that.”  
  
Hermione leaned on him and began to cry a second later. “I hate being so  _weak_ ,” she whispered.  
  
“You’re not weak,” Harry whispered, and stroked her hair back. “Trauma just hits us in different ways, that’s all.” He still woke up in a cold sweat if he hit the wall with his hand, sometimes, thinking he was back in the cupboard. He’d finally had to move his bed away from all walls so it stood in the middle of the room. “Ron’s hits him in different ways yet, and George’s. It’s different trauma. That’s the way things are.”  
  
Hermione gave him a feeble punch in the shoulder. “You’re not supposed to be the wise one.  _I’m_ supposed to be the wise one.”  
  
Harry murmured for her to hush and embraced her, and went on rocking her long past the point where Rose wanted to be picked up. He just held Rose with one arm and Hermione with the other, and used a charm that made the knife start cutting up the vegetables. He did have to let go of Hermione long enough that she could tell him what she planned to do with them.  
  
Ron came home not long after, and they ate dinner together; the vegetables turned out to be for one of those salads that looked too awful and crisp to be real, but were fine once Harry added some other ingredients. Ron said nothing about Harry visiting Malfoy Manor, other than to give him one deep, grave look.  
  
“I hope you know what you’re doing, mate,” he said.  
  
Harry gave him a peaceful smile back, because he didn’t want to start a lecture on how not knowing what he was doing was part of the attraction, and changed the subject.  
  
*  
  
“Malfoy scarred my brother.”  
  
“Yes, I remember that,” said Harry, and held up the small wheel he was working on to the light. It was supposed to look like a fallen-off part of a child’s toy, and light up with blazing blindness once someone stooped over to pick it up. But Harry had started having a different idea for it. Pity that the idea had come to him in a dream and he didn’t remember it properly. Turning the wheel in different directions and looking at it from different angles might help him remember.  
  
“Malfoy was responsible for torturing Hermione.”  
  
“That was Bellatrix Lestrange, actually.” Harry put the wheel down and shook his head. He wasn’t going to remember his dream. He really should start keeping a pad of paper and a quill next to his bed, the way George did.  
  
“Same family!”  
  
“It depends,” said Harry, standing up to put the wheel back in its display. “Bellatrix Lestrange was a Lestrange, or a Black depending on whether you want to think about where she was born. But Malfoy was born a Malfoy. I assumed you knew that from the way you keep spitting his name.”  
  
“ _Harry_.” George was all but yelling at him now, one hand clasping his arm.  
  
Harry turned around and met George’s eyes. “Let go, George,” he said. The hold on his arm had tightened past funny to painful, and Harry wasn’t about to put up with that. There were ways that he could help his friends with his trauma, and ways that he refused to. “ _Let go_ ,” he repeated, when George just stared at him.  
  
George dropped his arm and stalked over to the far side of the shop. Harry took his hand off his wand.  
  
“How can you be so friendly with someone who hurt my family?” George whispered to the far wall.  
  
“Because it’s been ten years since the war,” Harry said. Looking at it from the outside, Harry thought, it was no wonder that Malfoy had come to the conclusion that Harry was the slave of his friends. Someone would look at George still being affected that strongly by the war, and decide that he wasn’t healthy. What Harry and his friends knew—even if they sometimes forgot—was that Harry had his limits, things he wouldn’t do for them and wouldn’t be pushed beyond. Friendship with Malfoy was another one of those limits. It just hadn’t come up before. “Malfoy was sentenced to a year in Azkaban for what he did to Bill, among other things. If that’s not enough to pay for what he did, what is?”  
  
“He called Hermione a Mudblood!”  
  
“And if he said that word, I’d punch him in the mouth,” Harry agreed calmly. “My mother fits the same category. If he said that word, it would be a sign that he hasn’t really changed, and I wouldn’t want to spend any more time around him, either.”  
  
“Then why are you still there?” George spun in place and stared at him.  
  
“ _If_ he said the word,” Harry said. “If denoting hypothetical situations.  _If_ he said it, then yeah, I would punch him in the mouth and walk away.  _If_ you were this much of a prat all the time, then I wouldn’t work with you. You see how it works?”  
  
George looked at the floor. “I wish Fred was here.”  
  
The sound of that whisper disarmed Harry—and he didn’t think George had done it on purpose. Sometimes, it just slipped out, how lonely George was, how much he wished the world still contained his twin. He stepped up beside George and put an arm around his shoulders. “I know,” he whispered into his ear. “And I would trade so many things for him.”  
  
George leaned against him, swaying. Then he pulled back and coughed. “Would you mind holding the shop for me today, Harry? I think I have to go home. I said some things I shouldn’t have.”  
  
Harry nodded. It was as close to an apology as George could give him right now, when he had so much else going on in his head. “Sure. Go home and rest.”  
  
George gave him a wan smile and went to the fireplace, disappearing into it. Harry hid his sigh and Summoned the lunch he’d brought with him, leftover salad from Ron and Hermione’s last night mingled with some blackberries he’d bought that morning. Under a Preservation Charm, all of it was still deliciously fresh.  
  
As he ate, he went over his visit to Malfoy Manor in his head again, and wondered if he had made the wrong decision by going there. It had certainly cost him in trouble and strife with his friends. And Malfoy might never want to invite him over again, if Harry made the wrong response to a pure-blood custom sometime in the future.  
  
But he ended up deciding that yes, it had been worth it. Trouble and strife were what he had a lot with his friends anyway, even if it was just him trying to get them to do something they were afraid to do and them arguing with him. And he had established those inner limits for himself years ago, as a way to keep from getting overwhelmed. He loved his friends. He would help them all he could.  
  
He wouldn’t become their servant, or their extension. If they wanted to live their lives the way they were doing forever, fine; Harry knew he could coax them to go out and do more, but they were the ones who ultimately had to make the decision. Likewise,  _he_ was the one who had to make the final decision over how to organize his own life.  
  
Satisfied, Harry had just finished his lunch when there was a squeal from the front door of the shop that meant the wards had engaged. Harry raised his eyebrows and stood up. He might have expected Malfoy to come knocking when the wards were up, or Neville, but they would have both been able to actually knock.  
  
When he looked out through the front door, it was to find a vaguely familiar woman standing on the front step. Harry frowned as he looked at her. He was sure that he had seen her somewhere before, but all he could think of right now was that her sleek blond hair reminded him of Scorpius’s.  
  
Then Harry realized who she must be, and sighed.  _I hope that I don’t have to reconcile Malfoy and his wife or something. There’s probably a bloody custom about that, somewhere.  
_  
She was drawing her wand at the moment. Harry coughed, and she stopped and stared at him. “I wouldn’t do that, Mrs. Malfoy. The wards I put up would throw the curse back with twice the force.”  
  
“I went back to Greengrass when I divorced,” said Astoria, with a kind of low and thrilling voice that Harry could easily imagine finding attractive, if her face wasn’t screwed up like Aunt Petunia smelling magic.  
  
“Okay, then, Ms. Greengrass.” Harry shook his head. “What I said is still true. Are you here to order a prank? We’re closed for half an hour more.”  
  
But he knew he wouldn’t be that lucky, and sure enough, Astoria snapped, “No. I came to tell you to stay away from my son.”  
  
“Er,” said Harry, a bit at a loss. If Astoria had wanted to keep Scorpius away from Harry, or everyone, surely she would have taken custody of him. Or she would have got wind of Harry interacting with Scorpius before now. It wasn’t like they’d been hidden interactions, except for the one in Malfoy Manor. “Why?”  
  
“I don’t want someone else raising him,” said Astoria, and stared at him as if he ought to know what that meant.  
  
Harry gave her a slow, lazy smile. She was irritating him. “If I run into someone who wants to raise him, I’ll be sure to pass the message along.”  
  
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Astoria, and leaned forwards until her nose came dangerously near the wards. Harry thought of flicking the wards just a touch or so farther until they gave her a little blister, but decided that that would be childish. “You’re all my son can talk about whenever I visit him. I don’t want you settling into his life and then deciding that you’re his parent and you can discipline him. You’re not.”  
  
“I won’t ever think I’m his parent. I’m sure I’d remember.”  
  
Astoria flushed more deeply than anything had made her do so far, even though Harry thought it was one of his weaker comebacks. “You’re  _not_ to disappoint him. I don’t want anything to hurt or disappoint Scorpius. Do you understand me?” She laid her hand pointedly on her wand.  
  
Harry rolled his eyes at her. “Have you considered that forbidding me contact with him would just make him more intrigued with me? Like all the things Dumbledore forbade at Hogwarts that just made some students more determined to do them, like go into the Forbidden Forest.”  _Fred,_ he thought with a flash of his own distress, but kept his face calm. He needed to show Astoria reason, not weakness. “Let him play with me for right now, and talk about me. Sooner or later, he’ll grow out of his fascination with me. Probably sooner. I’m not all that interesting close up.”  
  
Astoria’s flush faded, and she looked at him more closely still. Then she nodded. “Perhaps you’re right. But if you’re wrong, remember that my son still has  _two_ parents. Good day, Mr. Potter.” And she turned and walked rigidly away from the shop, as though the Diagon Alley cobblestones were too dirty to hold her.  
  
Harry sighed wearily and strengthened the wards. He would have to ask Malfoy if there was some custom for what to do when a friend’s ex-wife came to the door and made nonsensical threats.  
  
 _Perhaps I can send her a mirror so she can see how ugly she looks when she’s despising me._  


	9. Gifts Like Sunlight

“I suppose you’re wondering why it took me so long to come up with a suitable gift for you.”  
  
Harry thought his smile surprised Malfoy as he opened his door. This time, Malfoy hadn’t told Harry that he was coming to his house. Then again, he must know Harry didn’t hang around the shop all the time, and it was pretty early on a Sunday afternoon.  
  
“You’re lucky I was awake and making a late breakfast,” Harry said, motioning him inside. “If I was asleep, then you could pound all you liked and nothing would wake me up.”  
  
“I don’t think that’s true.” Malfoy pinned him with a glance that made it seem like he was practicing to be a hawk. “You were asleep the last time Scorpius and I came here, and we woke you up with our knocking, didn’t we?”  
  
“Fine, ruin all my jokes,” Harry grumbled, and led him to the dining room table, nodding for him to put the small box he held down on the table. And yes, Harry was curious about the gift, but not enough to let it take over the conversation. “Why isn’t Scorpius with you? Didn’t you think you’d need his knocking help?”  
  
“I only ruin your jokes because they aren’t very good.” Malfoy folded his hands primly on the table, beside the box. “Scorpius is at home, visiting with his mother. She comes and sees him now and then. Not nearly as often as I think she should, but I will admit that’s it sometimes easier to leave him with her.”  
  
“Probably protecting him from bad influences.” Harry went back to tending his mixture of different kinds of fruit and bread. It was a kind of salad, but only if you thought of a salad as “pouring a bunch of different foods in a bowl and seeing what happened.”  
  
“You think I’m a bad influence on my son?”  
  
It surprised Harry how quickly that made him turn around, how swiftly he instinctively reached a hand out. Malfoy was huddled against the back of his chair, and watching Harry with almost wild eyes.   
  
“No,” Harry whispered. His voice came out more breathy than he liked. He took a deep breath and continued. “Never. I could never think that you’re a bad influence on your son. There are things that we disagree about, like whether you should have let Scorpius know about Teddy and Andromeda years ago, but you’re not a bad influence.”  
  
“Then what,” said Malfoy, and didn’t finish the sentence, because this time, his head came up and his nostrils flared as though he was scenting something. “You. Astoria is worried about the time that you’ve been spending with Scorpius.”  
  
“Got it in one,” said Harry wryly, and turned back to chopping up the slices of strawberries very fine. He didn’t think he could look directly at Malfoy’s face right now. And the panicked flutter in the middle of his stomach when it came to the thought of Malfoy considering himself a bad father…  
  
 _It’s because he’s suffered enough. And I just said something casual and didn’t mean to worry him the way I did. I didn’t even realize I_ could  _worry him the way I did._  
  
All those things were true, but they didn’t explain the depth of Harry’s own reaction, however much they might explain Malfoy’s. He shook his head and kept his hand and his knife moving in smooth motions, chopping up those pieces of fruit. He would have to figure it out later, because Malfoy was there right now, and demanding his attention.  
  
“You realize that it’s not your fault if she’s paranoid?” Malfoy asked insistently, walking around so he could see Harry’s face in more than profile. Harry tried to retain his calmness, but he had the feeling that he wasn’t really fooling Malfoy. “She visits Scorpius, but not often. She gave up the chance to raise him on her own or even with more input than she gets. It’s not your fault.”  
  
“Oh, I know that,” said Harry, and smiled at him. “And I told her that trying to forbid Scorpius from talking about me or seeing me was the exact wrong thing to do, because all children like things better when they’re forbidden.”  
  
“Yes, they do,” said Malfoy, and he was looking into the distance in a bleak way that made Harry wonder about the way Lucius had raised  _him_.  
  
It wasn’t his place to ask, though, and wouldn’t be unless they became much better friends than they currently were. Harry laid his knife aside finally, and asked, “Do you want something to eat?”  
  
Malfoy gave a distracted look at the bowl of fruit and salad. “I didn’t mean to drop in on you at lunch. I don’t want you to feel like you have to feed me.”  
  
Harry rolled his eyes and put the bowl of fruit and salad down in the middle of the table. “Yes, that’s exactly what I feel like. It’s such a chore.  _Such_ a chore.” He laid his hand in the middle of his forehead and struck a dramatic pose.  
  
“Are you making fun of me?”  
  
“What do you fucking think?” Harry turned towards him and spread his hands. “Seriously, Malfoy, I’m not sure how much more open I can make it. You’re invited to lunch-breakfast. You showed up not knowing I was making it. I know that’s true. I can deal with one more extra mouth.”  
  
Malfoy gave an uncertain nod and sat down at the other side of the table. Harry watched him thoughtfully. Malfoy hadn’t seemed a tenth this nervous when he’d invited Harry to the Manor for lunch, even given the traumatic memories that Harry had a right to associate with the house and what had happened the last time  _Malfoy_ had seen Harry there. Maybe just being without Scorpius was a little strange for him.  
  
They ate in silence, and then Malfoy leaned forwards and pushed the small box insistently towards Harry. “Open it, before I lose my nerve,” he muttered.  
  
“That doesn’t sound good, if it’s so terrifying,” said Harry, and smiled at Malfoy again. Malfoy didn’t smile back this time. Harry rolled his eyes, but only to himself, and examined the box that Malfoy had given him in more detail.  
  
It was small, and Harry had thought it was wrapped in red paper at first, which seemed a rather Gryffindor choice for Malfoy. Then he scolded himself for having such silly ideas. People weren’t defined solely by their House in Hogwarts, especially this long after they left school. And the red turned out to be the velvet that covered the box, or that the box was made of, rather than paper.  
  
Harry frowned. Something about the box was familiar, but surely…  
  
He let the thought trail off as he opened the box, which was simply a matter of flipping back a hinged lid. Then the thought came back as he stared at the simple but highly-polished silver ring that sat in a slot in the box’s velvet. The ring had no stone, only a complicated tangle of silver vines and flowers on the top.  
  
Harry looked up at Malfoy. Malfoy had burning eyes, but not the kind of burning that Harry would associate with the marriage proposal that this ring looked like. So, instead of snapping, “No,” the way he would have to any pure-blood marriage proposal, he turned the box around and studied the ring.  
  
There was a glow of subtle enchantment around it, he realized a second later. It was the sort he had learned to associate with a Portkey—which he had probably learned in the first place because he was so paranoid about accidentally grabbing one since the war.  
  
He finally looked back at Malfoy, and without the temptation to snap that he had felt at first. “This is a Portkey to—where? The Manor?”  
  
Malfoy sighed and sat back. “Yes. It’s enchanted like one I wear.” He gestured to a silver ring on the fourth finger of his left hand. Harry hadn’t paid much attention to it, because he had assumed that of course Malfoy would wear some jewelry, but when he concentrated on it, he could isolate the right kind of aura. “It lets you appear in a small room deep inside the west wing, and sounds an alarm to let me know that someone has come. Of course, most of the time I would come prepared to welcome whoever wore one, not fight them, but it’s best to be cautious.”  
  
Harry cocked his head. “I’m probably going to regret asking this, because it’ll lead me into another wilderness of pure-blood customs and things I would rather not know,” he muttered. Malfoy’s face never changed. “All right. Why a ring?”  
  
“Because it’s one of the only ways to wear a Portkey unobtrusively,” said Malfoy. “My father used to use buttons, but I watched him forget to transfer them from robe to robe too often. A watch would work if we had more in the Muggle style.” Harry opened his mouth to ask when Malfoy had  _seen_ watches in the Muggle style, but Malfoy was faster. “A ring is best.”  
  
“Yeah,” said Harry, after weighing those words for a second and thinking of all the many, many lists of different gifts and nuances they had in those pure-blood books. “Right.”  
  
Malfoy blinked. “Have you found a better way to wear a Portkey? I would be interested to hear it.”  
  
Harry pointed one finger at him, careful not to touch the ring. He would probably be swearing undying loyalty to the Malfoy family or promising to be Scorpius’s godfather if he did that. “I mean that when all these gifts have so many meanings, you wouldn’t have given me a ring just because it’s a convenient shape. It has anther significance, too, doesn’t it?”  
  
In the silence, Malfoy turned pink on every inch of visible skin.  
  
“Look,” said Harry, getting up from the table and reaching for their bowls and forks. Malfoy shrank back a little as if he expected to be slapped, but Harry only floated their dishes to the sink and started watching them. “I told you once before. I want to be your friend, but I don’t want surprises sprung on me like you did with that mirror and lying about the material it was made of. Am I going to marry you or something if I accept this ring?”  
  
More silence, while Malfoy seemed to struggle with putting pure-blood customs into words. Or maybe just Malfoy indirectness into directness, Harry thought, watching him while he cast the right charms to make the dishes wash themselves. He did seem to have a hard time with speaking the truth straight out.  
  
“The ring doesn’t imply marriage,” Malfoy whispered finally. “Not by itself, not that particular shape. It has to do with the material it’s made of, and what’s on it, and the circumstances it’s presented in, and the way it’s accepted.” He shook his head a little and met Harry’s eyes. “And a marriage ring always has a stone.”  
  
Harry smiled at him. “Thank you.”  
  
“What for?” Malfoy looked at him out of the corner of one eye. “For not attempting to marry you against your will? As if I would  _do_ that.”  
  
“I hope that you wouldn’t,” Harry said, and walked back to the table to pick up the box with the ring. Malfoy watched him as though he didn’t know whether to hope or sick up, so Harry made the decision for him, and slid the ring onto his finger. “For my sake, and for yours. You should marry someone who loves you, and someone who would be good for Scorpius. And, of course, I don’t want to get married against my will.”  
  
“I don’t think you would consider yourself married, no matter what happened.” That was said with a trace of the old Malfoy sneer, but the effect was a little lessened because Malfoy couldn’t stop looking at the ring on Harry’s finger.  
  
 _This really matters to him, doesn’t it?_ Harry couldn’t begin to guess all the reasons why. But Malfoy was a friend, and until and unless he did something actively harmful—like lying again—Harry would go on thinking of him as a friend. That meant he would do things for him the way he did for other friends.  
  
“No,” Harry agreed. “I wouldn’t consider myself bound by hoary old customs for  _any_ reason.” He waited, and Malfoy finally stopped staring at the ring and looked him in the eye. “I don’t have to live by them, and it doesn’t matter what other people think. I’m going to do what I like. And I wouldn’t like someone who tried to entrap me.”  
  
Malfoy finally gave the barest of nods.   
  
“Now,” said Harry, “that we’ve established this ring doesn’t mean something we should both feel lucky to escape, why don’t you tell me what it  _does_ mean? Why did you want to give me a Portkey in the shape of a ring?”  
  
Maybe because he had already gone through the hardest confession first, Malfoy answered a lot more readily this time. “It does represent something exclusive, something special. Something like the friendship I was asking for with the mirror.” He stared at Harry as if scrutinizing him for signs of magical or physical exhaustion again. Harry wanted to offer to go get his mirror, which was in the pocket of his cloak, but refrained. “I want to be friends with you in a way no one else is.”  
  
Harry offered him a small smile. “Fine. I assume that there are no specific barriers or boundaries to that friendship? We don’t have to do certain things? We can still be friends in all sorts of ordinary ways as well as the special ones that this ring implies?”  
  
Malfoy nodded. His gaze had once again dropped to Harry’s finger. He looked a bit dazed.  
  
“Then I accept,” said Harry. He adjusted the ring for a second, fiddling with it, but it didn’t need adjusting; it fit perfectly on his finger. “How did you know that it would fit me? Did you make notes on my ring size or something?” It was rather creepy to imagine Malfoy staring at his hands for that long.  
  
“There’s an enchantment on it to find the right size, as well.” Malfoy blinked at him. “You don’t have that spell on all your clothes?”  
  
Harry shook his head. “Why would I? I still go to Madam Malkin’s and have her make my clothes, and she has my measurements. If they change, she has to measure them again like anybody else.” He admired the ring, holding it up to the light and watching the soft glow of that light through the aura around it that he could see, now he knew what he was looking for. “I didn’t know that spell existed. But it’s useful.”  
  
“You still go to Madam Malkin’s,” Malfoy repeated, further dazed.  
  
“Yes,” said Harry, and wondered in silent amusement what breach of pure-blood etiquette he had committed this time. Maybe everyone ordered their clothes by some secret owl-post where they read your measurements from your mind via distant Legilimency. “Is there something wrong with that?”  
  
Malfoy snapped back to himself and shook his head. “No. No, of course not.” He still watched Harry a bit doubtfully, but nodded to the ring. “Does this mean that you accept the gift and the implied invitation to the Manor that it holds out?”  
  
“The implied  _permanent_ invitation?” Harry asked, and saw Malfoy nod. “Thank you for confirming that. I suppose I do. The ring is beautiful, and now that I know I’m not going to be trapped into marriage, I can accept it without reservations.”  
  
Malfoy’s face relaxed, and he smiled.  
  
Harry froze, staring. He had been wondering, in the back of his mind, if a friendship that upset his other friends and was so tricky and difficult—because he might offend Malfoy by his ignorance of the finer points of etiquette, or he might get upset at something Malfoy did—was worth continuing.  
  
It was, when he saw that smile. It was the way that Ron smiled when he was recounting a successful case. It was the way George smiled when he forgot Fred was gone.  
  
And it was directed at Harry, as if he was the source and cause of Malfoy’s happiness. Harry’s hand unintentionally settled over the ring on his finger, squeezing it, and Malfoy nodded as though he could keep perfect time with the thoughts flying through Harry’s head.  
  
“Thanks,” Harry said again, and held out his hand, not sure whether he would shake Malfoy’s or take his shoulder or what.  
  
Malfoy made the decision for him, standing up and clasping his wrist. “I suppose I should be going,” he murmured, head tilted to the side and eyes fastened on Harry’s face. “Unless you have further questions about the ring that I can answer?”  
  
“I think you explained it pretty well,” Harry said, and glanced at the ring sparkling above Malfoy’s wristbone again. “I think it’s pretty pretty.”  
  
Malfoy gave a soundless laugh, exposing brilliant white teeth in a way that affected Harry even more than his smile earlier had. “Good,” he said, and bowed his head so it was halfway between farewell bow and gracious nod. “I’ll see you later.”  
  
He left, and Harry stood there studying his ring in the sunlight through the windows for a few seconds. Did it promise more than it should? Was he being lured with the promise of the  _forbidden?_  
  
 _Do you have too much bloody time on your hands?_  
  
Harry decided the answer was yes, and went back to cleaning up the kitchen.


	10. All Relative

“Where did you get that ring, Harry?”  
  
“A friend,” said Harry, and went on, knowing he hadn’t satisfied Andromeda, but also that she would have to rest unsatisfied. “Can I talk to you and Teddy for a second?”  
  
Teddy’s chest swelled up. He was just old enough, at ten, to feel like he should be included in adult things. Harry grinned at him as he swept Teddy into the drawing room with them. Andromeda was looking back and forth between the two of them in what seemed like wonder. Harry settled her gently in a chair that was some distance from the fireplace and then turned around and gestured Teddy to sit wherever he wanted. Teddy sat on the hearth, his face so bright that Harry wasn’t surprised to see his hair turn Weasley red a few seconds later.  
  
 _I just hope he won’t be disappointed once he finds out what it really is,_ Harry thought, but he didn’t think Teddy would. He wasn’t in the habit of expecting unrealistic gifts. He turned back to Andromeda and said, “There’s a relative of yours who would like to bring his son to meet you.”  
  
Andromeda’s mouth fell open a little, and then her chin tightened. “Is this about who I think it is, Harry?” she asked, with dangerous quiet.  
  
“That depends on who you think it is,” Harry responded, and winked at her.  
  
“Who  _is_ it?” Teddy had bounced up from the hearth and was standing next to Harry, arms folded as if he could compel an answer that way. “What relatives do we have? Some of Dad’s?” He hadn’t, as far as Harry knew, had much contact with any Lupin relatives left living, but then, they hadn’t had much contact with Remus, either.  
  
“No,” said Andromeda softly. “My sister’s son. And his son. You  _are_ talking about that, Harry?” Her hands had curled like claws around the arms of her chair.  
  
“Yes,” said Harry, meeting her gaze squarely. “He’s at fault, too. He told his son that all his relatives on the Black side were dead. But both of them want to meet you, now. Or at least he’s agreed to tell his son that you exist, and see how it goes.” There wasn’t a doubt in Harry’s mind that Scorpius would want to come over the instant he learned about Teddy, but Malfoy would take more convincing.  
  
“I have a cousin?” Teddy interrupted quietly. His hair had turned black, and his eyes almost as deep a color as Snape’s. “Who?”  
  
“Draco Malfoy,” said Harry, turning to him. “And his son, Scorpius. They’re your cousins, yes.” He didn’t know the exact term for the degree of cousinship between Teddy and Draco—first cousin once removed or something, but he probably had it wrong—but he knew that wouldn’t matter to Teddy. “They had some problems with your grandmother, you know. That’s why they’ve never tried to meet you.”  
  
Teddy stared up at him. “They’re pure-bloods.”  
  
Harry nodded. “And Malfoy—I mean, Draco—did used to believe that there was something wrong with someone who had Muggle blood. I don’t think Scorpius ever did. He’s too young to believe it on his own, and I don’t think Draco taught him.” It was strange to have Draco’s first name in his mouth. After a few seconds, Harry figured out why. Malfoy hadn’t invited Harry to call him by his first name, and until he did, it would feel a little like Harry had taken a gift without asking for it. He supposed that he would only use the name when he absolutely had to, to clarify things, until he got that invitation.  
  
Teddy stared at the floor. “I don’t want to meet someone who thinks less of me for being Dad and Mum’s son,” he whispered.  
  
Harry knelt down in front of Teddy. “If I thought he did, then I wouldn’t let him come over how no matter how he begged,” he said softly. “But I don’t think he does. He wants—he wants the best of everything for his son, and if he thought you were inferior, he’d never agree to bring Scorpius over here.”  
  
Teddy squinted at him. “So, really, we’re depending on him being sincere because he’s arrogant?”  
  
Harry laughed in delight. Teddy was  _smart,_ that was part of the joy of him. “You could say that,” he said, and then stood up and clasped Teddy’s shoulders. “But I told you, I would never let him near you if I thought he still believed in blood purity. Can you trust me?”  
  
“I’ll always trust you,” Teddy said, and he leaned forwards and buried his head in Harry’s shoulder, admitting something he almost never did anymore, while his hair turned pale yellow. “I’m just scared.”  
  
Harry hugged him, and held him patiently until Teddy pulled back. “I really think it’ll be all right,” he said, and showed Teddy his hand again. “Malfoy gave me this ring. It’s a pledge of exclusive friendship. He used to  _hate_ me. If this ring doesn’t show that he’s changed, then I don’t know what will.”  
  
Andromeda cleared her throat softly behind him. Teddy, who knew the sound, scowled a little, but nodded to Harry and said, “Then I want to meet him. And my other cousin,” and retreated from the room. Harry turned to face Andromeda.  
  
She was still sitting, but she seemed to have acquired power and presence anyway. Harry blinked a little. He dealt with so many people who were fragile some of the time and needed his support that it was always a shock to be reminded that Andromeda was rarely that way.  
  
“I do not like this,” said Andromeda. “I know what that ring means, and that he wants to take you from us.”  
  
“If he does, then he lied to me,” said Harry evenly. “Because I saw him yesterday and asked about it, and he said that he didn’t want to trick me into marrying him or anything like that. He already lied to me once about what a mirror was made of that he gave me. I warned him that I wouldn’t consider myself bound by any silly pure-blood customs I don’t agree with.”  
  
Andromeda’s gaze fixed, brooding, on the ring. “By wearing that, you already are.”  
  
“What custom’s that? That people support bloody purity by wearing rings with vines on them, and a leaf here or there tells you exactly what they believe in?”  
  
Andromeda stared at him. Harry stared back. What did she expect from him? He had told the truth, and if he found out that Malfoy  _had_ left out information again, he was going to be very upset. But he wasn’t going to rip the ring from his finger and run shrieking in horror again, either, unless Andromeda could tell him what she feared.  
  
“An exclusive friendship,” she said instead. “A special friendship. One that he wants you to value more than any other.”  
  
“He can want me to value it more than my friendships with Ron and Hermione and George and the rest of the Weasleys and you,” said Harry calmly. “He can stand there and want it until the world ends. It doesn’t mean I will.”  
  
Andromeda looked baffled. Harry wondered if she was still pure-blood in some way, if growing up in a house with people who valued pure-blood customs had done something to her brain. As much as he liked Malfoy, he wouldn’t be surprised to find out it had done something to his, too.  
  
“But you’re wearing the ring,” Andromeda said, in the slow voice of someone willing to explore possibilities.  
  
Harry was glad to meet her on that ground. “Yes, but because it was a gift and because I  _do_ value his friendship. Not because I agree with it if it represents blood purity or marriage. Does it?”  
  
“No. But…” Andromeda still seemed to be lost at sea. Then she pulled herself together, and that aura of power showed up around her again. “Other people will assume that you’re in an exclusive friendship with the person who gave it to you.”  
  
“Other pure-bloods, you mean?”  
  
Andromeda nodded, and Harry shrugged. “If they act surprised because I’m friends with more than one person at once, I can explain it to them. The same way I would if the  _Daily Prophet_ reported that I was dating someone when I really wasn’t and I wanted to correct their silly gossip.”  
  
“There are people who would assume it anyway,” Andromeda warned him.   
  
Harry looked her directly in the eye, waited until he was sure she was paying attention, and then gave a massive shrug.  
  
“You don’t care about that,” Andromeda said, and she sounded a little dazed, a little uncertain. “Even though you would care about correcting the gossip in the  _Prophet_.”  
  
“I would care about correcting it, but only so that my side of the story was out there,” Harry told her. “I know that there are some people who will never believe me, because that’s not what they want to believe about me. Likewise, I would tell people who asked about what the ring symbolizes, and if they want to go on thinking that means that I’m betrothed to Malfoy or something, they will. I can’t control people’s minds. I can only give them the chance to listen to the real story if they’ll hear it. And some people will believe me, and not bother me.”  
  
“I see what Hermione means about you.”  
  
“Oh?” Harry hadn’t thought Hermione had visited Andromeda recently, at least not when he wasn’t there.  
  
“That you’re so resilient that you don’t even want to change your behavior to avoid suspicions being thrown at you.” Andromeda’s gaze swept up and down him as though she expected to see spikes growing out of Harry’s body to prick the bubbles of those suspicions. “Perhaps it would be better if the rest of us could be like that, but we aren’t.”  
  
“No,” Harry agreed.  
  
They went on looking at each other for a little while, and then Andromeda sniffed and turned her head aside. “You can bring these Malfoys to my house because Teddy is looking forward to it so much,” she said softly. “But if they show the  _least_ bit of prejudice towards him…”  
  
“Then I’ll clear them out,” Harry reassured her. “I don’t think Scorpius would, but Malfoy is older and might still have some unfortunate beliefs. I don’t want him to hurt Teddy, though.”   
  
“Of course,” said Andromeda.   
  
She was still staring at him as if he was strange. Harry shrugged. He knew she had to bear her own burden of grief, since her daughter and husband had died, and sometimes he thought that she mourned Remus almost as much as he did. If it wasn’t that she had to be strong for Teddy, maybe she would have been more like Ron and Hermione.  
  
“Seriously, is there anything about this ring that Malfoy didn’t tell me?” Harry turned the ring so that it flashed in the sunlight coming through the window. “I will throw it away if he lied to me. I told him I wouldn’t put up with that.”  
  
“No, it means an exclusive friendship.” But Andromeda’s mouth pulled down anyway, and she looked away from him. “I’d appreciate it if you would keep an eye on him the whole time he’s here.”  
  
“I can do that,” Harry agreed easily. He thought about telling her that Malfoy would probably consider it no hardship to have Harry watch him, and then discarded the notion. She would only start interpreting things in a silly way again, ring or no ring.  
  
*  
  
Harry had to admit that, concerns about the ring and the prejudices Malfoy might have retained and all, he was glad that he had been there to see Teddy and Scorpius meet. Scorpius came into the house with his head turning back and forth as if he thought his cousin might be hiding behind a wall, and then he stopped and stared when Teddy actually walked into the middle of the drawing room.  
  
Teddy stood staring at him for a moment, too. Then he turned his hair the color of Scorpius’s, although he retained the green eyes he currently had, the shade of Harry’s.  
  
“You’re my cousin Teddy,” said Scorpius. He said it with the certainty that had probably been trained into him, but Harry saw the way that his eyes flicked sideways, and he knew Teddy could destroy that budding confidence with a word.  
  
Teddy obviously saw no reason to. He nodded. “And you’re my cousin Scorpius.” He looked Scorpius over critically. “You’re a lot smaller than I thought you’d be.”  
  
Scorpius bristled at that, but he said, “I am unusually tall for my age.” He sounded like an adult for a second, until he added, “Daddy said so,” and glanced over his shoulder at Malfoy.  
  
Malfoy, who stood next to Harry, shivered out a breath. Then he said, “That’s true, Scorpius. It’s one of the things that’s true about you, although it might not always be true.”  
  
He switched his gaze to Teddy. Harry found himself tensing despite the ring and Malfoy’s sincerity and all his reassurances to Andromeda. If he had prejudices remaining, they would come out here, against Teddy, descendent of a Muggleborn and a werewolf. From the way that Teddy stared straight back at Malfoy, undaunted, he knew it, too.  
  
But Malfoy merely said, “I’m sorry that I never brought Scorpius to meet you before, Theodore. It was a mistake on my part.”  
  
“I prefer Teddy,” said Teddy, and studied Malfoy some more. Then he turned to Scorpius. “You’re small enough to sit on this dragon of mine that I kept when I got too big for it. Do you want to?”  
  
“A  _real_ dragon?” Scorpius looked awed, turning around as if he wondered how a dragon fit into the relatively small rooms of Andromeda’s house.  
  
“No, a toy,” said Teddy, but he seemed amused now, and his eyes changed to match Scorpius’s. Harry heard Andromeda make a small sound. He wondered if it was because Teddy looked like a Malfoy, or because he looked like Narcissa. “Come on, I’ll show you. You can ride it. I’m too big now, unless Uncle Harry casts a Lightening Charm.” He turned to Harry.  
  
“You could cast it yourself if you would practice with your grandmother’s wand,” Harry said mildly, but he relented when Teddy crossed his eyes, and cast the charm on him. “All right. Now go show Scorpius your dragon.”  
  
They tore away together, although Teddy ran much faster than Scorpius and he had to pause near the far door to let Scorpius catch up. Teddy looked at Harry and smiled, nodding and mouthing, “He’s all right,” before he and Scorpius vanished.  
  
That left Malfoy and Andromeda to look at each other. Harry thought about stepping between them and waving his arms to cut off their heated gaze, but he had known this would be awkward. Anyway, he wasn’t sure who he wanted to protect more.  
  
“Nephew,” said Andromeda at last, her mouth pursed as if she thought Malfoy would reject even that label.  
  
Malfoy slowly inclined his head. “Aunt.”  
  
Harry blinked. He didn’t think Andromeda, still so focused on Malfoy’s face and whatever ghosts she saw there, had noticed, but Malfoy had reached out and clutched his hand, down at waist level. He was rubbing his finger feverishly back and forth over the ring that Harry wore.  
  
After a moment of waiting for a genie to materialize or something, Harry decided that it probably was just a gesture to reassure himself. He turned his hand a little so that Malfoy lost hold of the ring. Malfoy’s fingers tensed as though he was going to snatch his hand back, but instead Harry clasped his wrist, and intertwined their fingers.  
  
Malfoy relaxed with a sudden blast of air from his lungs. Andromeda raised her eyebrows, but didn’t seem inclined to look for what had suddenly made him less nervous.  
  
“Well,” said Andromeda. “The kind of conversation we can make standing here and waiting for the children to return is limited. Will you not come into the parlor to wait for them?” She hesitated, then added, “And perhaps have some tea?”  
  
Malfoy nodded, as if he had just remembered that he was the one who had made the decision to seek Andromeda and Teddy out after so long. “I would like that,” he said, and followed Andromeda at a sedate pace. Harry started to part their hands, sure that Malfoy had recovered his natural arrogance and wouldn’t need his support anymore.  
  
Malfoy halted near the hearth, at the length of their arms, and looked back at him.  
  
Harry relented and came up to walk beside him. When he did, Malfoy once again took the opportunity to rub his ring.  
  
“That doesn’t cause me to fall in love with you mysteriously or something?” Harry whispered to him.  
  
Malfoy stumbled, and Harry narrowed his eyes. But Malfoy only gasped, in a faint voice that made Harry suspect he was trying to hold back laughter, “No, no. It—it only means the friendship I told you about.”  
  
Then he lifted his head, and his eyes burned into Harry’s.  
  
“But that you chose to wear it, even here, means more to  _me_ than you can imagine.”  
  
And he strode on his way, Harry’s hand clasped firmly in his. Harry followed, blinking, and trying to decide how he felt about it.  
  
Pleased, he decided at last.  
  
 _As long as there’s not really a genie or a love spell._


	11. Long Talks

“You talk like a sensible wizard, nephew.”  
  
Andromeda said it reluctantly. Harry could tell from the way that she immediately buried her nose in a teacup afterwards, as if she was afraid that Malfoy would start demanding compliments from her.  
  
But Malfoy inclined his head with surprising humility. “Thank you, aunt. I hope that’s one of the ways we can bring ourselves to reconcile, if we are alike.”  
  
Andromeda fanned herself with the edge of her sleeve. Harry grinned, and made sure he was hiding his grin behind his own teacup. That was the way Andromeda reacted when she didn’t want to show that she was affected. Harry had been with her one time when they’d met up with Celestina Warbeck in the middle of Diagon Alley, and she’d done the exact same thing.  
  
“Perhaps we can call each other by our names, as well?” Andromeda made the offer gingerly, as if she was stepping off a cliff into a crashing ocean. “Not just aunt and nephew.”  
  
“I thought we each needed the reminder of our relationship.” Malfoy leaned forwards. He had taken one of the many neat chairs in Andromeda’s sitting room, all shades of green and blue and gold, which Andromeda rearranged at different times into different patterns depending on what she was feeling. Right now, he was facing Andromeda, and Harry sat on a couch parallel to both their chairs. “But now, we’ve seen that we don’t disagree fundamentally on politics or Muggles or the right way to raise children. So we can call each other by name.”  
  
Andromeda hesitated one more time, then nodded. “Perhaps you can even call me Aunt Andromeda,” she added, offering what Harry knew was a huge concession for her.  
  
Harry caught his breath, and held it.  _Please, Malfoy, don’t screw this up._  
  
Malfoy didn’t seem inclined to. He had a grave expression on his face, as if he was listening to instructions from a piece of him that was more sensible than he often was. Then he bowed. “That’s fine, Aunt Andromeda. You can call me Draco or Malfoy, just as you choose.”  
  
He turned his head to look at Harry just when Harry was mentally admiring his acumen. “But I don’t feel right not extending the invitation to everyone in the room. Can you call me Draco, as well?”  
  
Harry smiled a little, feeling as though a warm pulse traveled through both the middle of his chest and his finger, under the ring. “That’s fine. Call me Harry if you want to, or Potter. It feels almost homey when you say it.”  
  
“Familiar, perhaps,” said Draco, his hand tightening for one second around his teacup. “I don’t believe that our rivalry at Hogwarts ever felt much like home to either of us.”  
  
Harry grinned and shrugged a little. “Well, I had a kind of rivalry with my cousin, if only because he did things that hurt me and I tried to get him back. So that was familiar. Probably why I got the better of you so many times. You weren’t used to having to compete with anyone for attention, so you weren’t as good at it.”  
  
Draco’s face had tightened to what Harry thought was snapping point. Harry maintained his bland, pleasant expression, and watched Draco’s face and hands all the while. This was something they would have to get past. They couldn’t pretend that the past didn’t exist. Not forever.  
  
Maybe it was just because Harry lived in constant contact with the past and the scars it had inflicted that made him say that, but still.   
  
Draco finally let out all the air that had accumulated in his lungs during the past minute in one long rush, and nodded. “What you’re saying has a deal of truth.” He turned back to Andromeda. “But you were going to explain your reasons for not thinking Shacklebolt will be elected Minister again. It’s true that he made some mistakes right after the war, but he’s grown and learned since then, and I think he’s mounted a strong campaign.”  
  
Andromeda answered with glowing cheeks. Harry leaned back and let his mind wander again. He didn’t care about politics except if it affected him, like someone trying to propose him for yet another honor, or if Hermione brought up the ways that it related to house-elves.  
  
It was good that Teddy would get to know his cousin, and it was good that Andromeda had someone to talk politics with, and it was good that Draco had granted Harry permission to call him by his first name. Yet, Harry thought there was a constraint and formality in Draco’s manner that hadn’t been there before.  
  
 _Sorry._ But it was true that Harry couldn’t keep away from the past forever. He would make a casual reference sometime, at least if their friendship continued at all, and he didn’t know whether it would make Draco stiffen up or ignore it or explode. Better to find out in a relatively neutral setting like Andromeda’s house, and change it later if there was a problem.  
  
*  
  
“That was unexpected.”  
  
Harry turned around. Draco had finally said he and Scorpius should be leaving, and Harry had volunteered to go and get the boys so Draco could enjoy some time alone with Andromeda. But Draco had said he would come instead.  
  
“What? That you got along with your aunt when you’ve ignored each other for years?” Harry asked, obligingly slowing his trot up the great staircase so Draco could catch up.  
  
“That you would refer to our rivalry like that, out of the blue.” Draco turned his head, his eyes so wide and complicated that Harry was astonished to see the pain in them. “Did you mean to hurt me, or what?”  
  
“I wanted to see what you would do,” Harry said. He did soften his voice and reach out to put his hand on Draco’s shoulder. “I can’t avoid speaking about the past all the time, with the hurts my friends have suffered and what they’ve asked me to take care of, and the troubles they bring me. I wanted to know how you would react to hearing about it sooner rather than later.”  
  
Draco tensed as though Harry had tried to hurt him, nostrils flaring. “I would  _never_ ask you to take care of me the way you take care of your friends,” he said, and moved away with his muscles strung so tight that Harry thought he would start prancing at any second. “Because I don’t need your sacrifices.”  
  
Harry didn’t feel like arguing about whether or not his friends did expect sacrifices of him, so he simply said, “What about my gifts?”  
  
Draco looked at him sideways. “Those aren’t the same things.”  
  
Harry grinned at him and kept climbing. Draco followed behind him, muttering under his breath. That was all right with Harry. He could do a lot of things, and Harry had lines drawn for what he would and wouldn’t accept, the same way he did with his other friends. Muttering was acceptable.  
  
As they got near Teddy’s room, Harry heard the intense, low sound of Teddy talking. He smiled. Teddy had a few friends at the local wizarding primary school, but not many close ones, and he would delight in showing off one of his games to a new playmate.  
  
“…so this means that you have to go around the board twice before you can attack the dragon’s hoard. And if someone else comes up and lands on the space that you were on in  _their_ next trip round the board, then they can challenge you to a duel.”  
  
“But why?” asked Scorpius. “I don’t understand that. Why’s it a duel?”  
  
Teddy started to explain, but Harry tuned the explanation out. Frankly, trying to remember all the variations on the rules that Teddy came up with for what used to be a perfectly simple game of Circle the Mountain would burn up his brain. He did glance back at Draco before he knocked on Teddy’s door, to see how Draco was taking this.  
  
Draco had his eyebrows raised, but he smoothed them down again when he saw Harry looking, as if he thought that Harry would disapprove of him showing surprise at anything Teddy did. Harry grinned and shook his head.  
  
“Teddy makes up so many of his own games that the ordinary toys don’t satisfy him,” he said, the second before Teddy ran out of the room and started talking.  
  
“Scorpius has never played Circle the Mountain,” he announced, as if that was the most important information he had ever told Harry, and shook his head sadly. “He didn’t know about the dueling rules or the rules for when you can get gold and when you can get gems, or _anything_.”  
  
“The majority of people who play the game don’t know about those rules, either,” Harry pointed out dryly. He knew that Teddy had had at least a few arguments with his friends over what those rules were, to the point where some of their mums had contacted Andromeda and asked that their sons play  _anything else_ when they were over at Andromeda’s house.  
  
“Well, they should.” Teddy was unruffled. “It’s a lot more fun to play it that way than just use the stupid rules that come with the box!”  
  
“It’s fun,” said Scorpius, and came out, and slipped his hand into Draco’s. He was looking at Teddy with unrestrained admiration, in a way that made Harry’s shoulders lose the last bit of tension. If Draco did have some prejudices remaining against Teddy, there was no way that he would succeed in imparting them to Scorpius. “I never played a game like that before. When can I play it again?”  
  
“When we visit here the next time,” Draco started, in a voice that Harry thought was probably meant to reassure Scorpius and Teddy that there would be a next time.  
  
 _And maybe me, too._ One of Draco’s eyes was fastened on him, if you looked at him carefully.  
  
“But why can’t I come over to the Manor, too, and bring the Circle the Mountain game along?” Teddy demanded. “Then Scorpius can show me all the things at  _your_ house that he talked about!”  
  
Draco blinked. Harry smiled. “That’s certainly all right with me,” he said. “And I think it would be all right with your grandmother, too.”  
  
Then he turned and waited to see if it was all right with the one person they might expect to oppose it, a bit.  
  
Draco’s free hand tightened on air. He wasn’t clenching Scorpius’s hand at all, Harry noticed. Well. That was good. It increased his sense that Draco was a father before he was anything else.  
  
Not that Harry minded. He wasn’t as close to Scorpius as he was to Rose—it wasn’t like he’d been there to see  _him_ being born—but he could certainly accept a cute kid as part of the friendship. Especially a kid like Scorpius, and a friendship like the one he might have with Draco.  
  
A moment later, Draco nodded, and even his free hand loosened and relaxed. “I think so. It will be a pleasure to see you there, Teddy.” He inclined his head to Teddy, then to Harry. “I assume that you will be escorting him, rather than his grandmother? Certain—associations—might be too much for her.”  
  
 _You don’t really think that, you just want to see me more than you want to see her, and this is a convenient excuse,_ Harry thought in amusement, but he nodded as solemnly as if he hadn’t figured out Draco’s little plan to get them all to the Manor together. “Of course. Should we say sometime next week?”  
  
Draco’s smile was small but triumphant as they worked out a day and time, subject to Andromeda’s approval. Harry couldn’t do anything but smile back. Even though Draco had to know Harry at least suspected what he had done, he was so  _cute_ when he acted as though he’d got away with something.  
  
*  
  
“That ring is new.”  
  
Harry blinked up at George. He’d spent most of the morning with his nose buried in a book, trying to figure out why their latest trick—powder that made it look as though the door to a room had vanished—wasn’t working. The magical theory was straightforward enough, and surely Muggles could manage the same thing with paint, so it must not be—  
  
“ _Harry_.”  
  
Harry laid the book down and stretched out his hand so that George could see the ring. “Yeah, it is. It’s another gift from Draco. Along with permission to call him by his first name,” he added, when George’s eyes widened and his mouth dropped open in what looked like protest.  
  
George shut his mouth on the protest a second later, thank Merlin. He looked away from Harry, and the muscle in his cheek jumped. Then he said, “I really wish that you would  _give this up_.”  
  
“Give what up?” Harry picked up his book again.  
  
“This attempt to have a  _friendship_ with him. As if a person like him knows what friendship is.”  
  
“I don’t think that he has the same notions I do of it,” Harry said. “He relates to me through pure-blood customs, and he gets all flustered when he realizes I don’t understand exactly what those mean. But if it’s a different kind of friendship, it’s one that I feel like learning more about.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Because I realized that my life isn’t full enough,” Harry said softly. “That a lot of my friendships are of the same type, and that I’d like some others, too.”  
  
George flinched as if Harry had struck him, and then turned away and marched mechanically to the shelves on the other side of the room, restlessly picking up an old Skiving Snackbox. Harry knew it was of a kind that Fred had been working on perfecting when he died. George never altered it, but he did fiddle with it when he was feeling upset.  
  
“I’m sorry that I didn’t make a perfect recovery,” George whispered, staring intently at the box. “I’m sorry that I still miss my twin.”  
  
“That isn’t the point,” said Harry. “Don’t you think I would have done something  _else_ by now if I couldn’t stand you missing Fred? I know that you miss Fred. It doesn’t make me wish you were different. It’s just something else about you, like having red hair and freckles. And Hermione has nightmares, and Ron suffers from grief, and so does your mum. Those are just part of you.”  
  
George paused and looked uncertainly back at him. “And Malfoy doesn’t have that kind of past?”  
  
Harry snorted. “Hardly. Sometimes I think that I can hear everything he’s carrying clank when he walks into the room.”  
  
“Then what’s the same between me and all your other friends?” George hesitated, as though he didn’t really want to ask the question, then added, “And what’s different about  _him_?”  
  
“What’s different about him,” said Harry, as gently as he could, “is that he wants to change things and move forwards. And you don’t.”  
  
Sure enough, that made George stiffen up all over again. Harry really thought he would crush the Skiving Snackbox, the way he was worrying it. Harry didn’t go over there and try to rescue it, though. That would be a bad idea right now.  
  
“I’m sorry that I miss my twin and I’m not your perfect new friend,” George whispered. “I think I told you that already.”  
  
“I know what happened when you tried to move forwards,” said Harry. “I wish you wouldn’t think that I blame you for it.”  
  
“It’s hard to do that when it sounds as though you  _do_ blame me for it.”  
  
Harry sighed and stood up and walked over this time. George put the Snackbox down and hunched there. Harry shook his shoulders a little. “I told you, it’s okay. It was hard for you to find help. Some people tricked you deliberately. Some people lied to you, and other people just thought they could help and it turned out they couldn’t. So it wasn’t your fault.”  
  
“But you think that Malfoy is stronger than me.” George’s eyes flashed.  
  
“More resilient,” Harry said. “The same word that you and Ron and Hermione apply to me and don’t bat an eyelash about.”  
  
George flushed slowly, the kind of flush that crept up his neck and his face and even under his hair, although Harry admittedly couldn’t distinguish it from the hair at that point. “I don’t want to apply it to someone like Malfoy.”  
  
“Then don’t,” said Harry, and let him go, and stood back. “There’s no reason that you need to talk about him or ever see him again. I’ll tell him and Scorpius not to come to the shop.” He held his hand up. “But then, don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answer to.”  
  
“What’s so bloody  _appealing_ about him?”  
  
“I told you already.”  
  
That ended with George stomping heavily into the back room. Harry sighed and sat down on the chair he’d already taken, reaching for his book and shaking his head.  
  
He meant what he had said. He didn’t want to force his friends to change. He didn’t think they were very happy, but trying to change that had hurt them—mostly as the result of people who didn’t even think about whether the war heroes were happy or not, they just wanted to gape at those war heroes or gossip about them or touch them or take out their resentments on them. So Harry was content to support his friends in the life they had chosen to lead. They had done enough.  
  
But Draco had chosen a different route, and Harry thought that he might want to bear him company on the road.  
  
 _That could change tomorrow. It could turn out that he’s still prejudiced or trying to trick me into something I don’t want._  
  
Harry shrugged. And until that happened, he would go with Draco. He liked him, he liked Scorpius, and he wanted to see what happened next.  
  
 _I don’t know why that’s so hard to understand,_ he thought wistfully, and returned to the book, which really  _did_ contain things that were hard to understand.


	12. The Wider World

The attack happened the way such attacks usually did. One minute, Harry was walking down the middle of Diagon Alley, minding his own business. He was trying to juggle a new purchase from Madam Malkin’s and an ice cream cone, and not doing a very good job of either. Then again, robes could always be cleaned. Melted ice cream couldn’t be brought back and poured into his mouth again.  
  
The next minute—the next  _second_ —the air around him blazed with white lightning that tried to earth itself in his chest.  
  
Harry dropped to his knees and lifted two sets of Shield Charms around him as fast as he could think them. One protected him, curled in on his crouching form. The other spread around the center of the alley, a huge, shimmering dome, guarding the innocent wizards and witches who walked there from the attacker.  
  
That taken care of, Harry turned to find out who it was this time.  
  
It was a tall wizard in a purple cloak, was who it was, and when he cast another curse, Harry caught a glimpse of the rearing serpent that fastened his cloak shut. It looked like it was made of pure emerald, too. Harry sighed in disgust. Yet another of those Risen Cobras. They thought they were the Death Eaters all over again.  
  
Most of them were saner than Bellatrix Lestrange, but had less sense than she’d had. Which was  _not_ a recommendation.  
  
Harry stood. The Risen Cobra promptly started dancing in place, pointing his wand proudly at Harry. All of them did that when they thought they had managed to “trick” him into a duel.  
  
Harry flicked his wand at the ground. It was the only sort of spell he could cast when he was inside the protection of his Shield Charms, because they would prevent any spell from flying out from the inside as surely as they would prevent them coming from the outside.  
  
But it was enough. The cobblestones beneath the Cobra’s feet ripped apart, rippled apart, and then the whole section of the street where he stood shuddered, tossing him to the ground. His wand flew out of his hand.  
  
Harry cast the Summoning Charm that brought the wand flying towards him until it hit his shields with a little tinkling sound and rolled on the stones. Then he canceled the shields and stepped out, putting one foot on the wand.  
  
The Cobra was on his feet now, gaping. Of course, without his wand, he couldn’t even Apparate away. He looked back and forth between Harry’s boot and his face as though that would change the situation somehow. Harry could see his face under the heavy hood as it fell back, and noted that he was very young. He probably imagined that excused him somehow.  
  
As far as Harry was concerned, it didn’t. He wouldn’t kill the little bastard, or even break his wand, but sometimes children needed to be punished.  
  
He cast another spell that made the street shudder a second time, rising up like that snake they were so proud to wear, and again the Risen Cobra crashed into the ground, flailing his arms. Harry cast a spell that plowed up the stones in an arrow-shaped wedge that aimed straight between his spread legs. The Cobra squeaked and tried to stand, to run, but the street leaped and danced, and kept him where he was.  
  
At the last moment, the Shattering Curse stopped an inch or so short of his groin.  
  
Harry snickered at the expression on the idiot’s face, and then turned around and nodded as he heard the cracks of the arriving Aurors. Two of them leaped forwards, and then stopped when they saw no casualties. The nearest one, Dawlish, approached Harry, shaking his head in a way Harry knew well.  
  
“And you left the training for the Corps because?” Dawlish demanded, even as he cast the spells that tied up the Cobra and ensured that he wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while. Harry flicked his foot, and sent the idiot’s wand flying into the grasp of another Auror, who looked startled for a second, and then grinned.  
  
“I was bored,” said Harry, and rolled his eyes at the look that got him. “And my friends needed me.”  
  
The Aurors had finally taken down the shields that protected the crowd, and chattering people tried to press forwards. Harry frowned at them. Most of the time, they were content to ignore him; he had finally convinced the ordinary shopkeepers and others who spent a lot of time here that he was a normal wizard, one who helped George run the shop and didn’t need or deserve any special consideration. Now they would gossip about him and look for some evidence of “differences” for Merlin knew how long.  
  
“That, I can understand,” said Dawlish, his voice softening. “But—won’t you let us do  _something_ for you?”  
  
“I already have two Orders of Merlin, First Class,” said Harry. One of them had been for the war, and another for that nasty little business that had seen him swimming a good part of the Channel at night. “But this time, there’s something you could do.”  
  
Dawlish perked up at once. “What?”  
  
Harry looked at the small, sad spot of color in the middle of the stones where he had been crouching. “Buy me some more ice cream? I think that one’s pretty much ruined.”  
  
*  
  
Harry was peacefully eating his dinner when he heard his Floo chime. Harry sighed and dropped his fork on the plate, contemplating not answering at all. If it was another stupid  _Prophet_ reporter who wanted to talk about his “undoubted heroism”…  
  
But it might be one of his friends, and Harry made his way to the fireplace half-rehearsing answers in his head about how anyone would have done that, if they had the ability, and half-ready to reassure them that he was fine.  
  
“Do you  _always_ have to risk your life?”  
  
Harry blinked at the way Draco’s face appeared in the fireplace. “Hello to you, too. And no, I suppose I don’t have to. I  _suppose_ that I could have just stood there and let him kill me.”  
  
Draco flushed; Harry was sure of that, even though it was often hard to tell with the green state of the flames in a Floo call. Then again, he was already familiar with a lot of the little ways that Draco’s face changed and tightened. “I didn’t mean that. I meant—were you annoying anyone when he attacked?”  
  
“I was walking down the middle of Diagon Alley eating ice cream and carrying a robe from Madam Malkin’s. Don’t worry, though. The Aurors got me some new ice cream.”  
  
“You’re  _ridiculous_ ,” Draco said, and his eyelids closed as though heavy weights were attached to them. “I kept the paper from Scorpius. I didn’t want him to see the pictures and worry.”  
  
“What pictures?” Harry knew that no reporters had got there until he was safely back inside Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes.  
  
“The pictures of the Cobra who attacked you, and the Aurors holding him,” said Draco grimly. “The story talked about how close he had come.”  
  
Harry rolled his eyes. “And how likely do you think  _that_ is? Compared to the likelihood of the papers exaggerating so they’ll have a good story?”  
  
Draco hesitated.  
  
“Exactly,” Harry said, with a nod. “He did catch me by surprise, but I set up Shield Charms around me and other people before he could hurt anyone. Then I used a spell in the street to knock him down, and another one to take his wand. Then I had a little fun teasing him before the Aurors showed up and took him into custody. That’s all that happened. The most upsetting thing was my ice cream getting ruined.”  
  
Draco held his hand to his forehead. It was trembling in a strange way. Harry kindly didn’t comment on it, and waited for Draco to either recover himself or tell Harry what the real purpose of his Floo call was. Because if it was just to yell at Harry for something Harry couldn’t help and hadn’t asked for, he was going to end it and go back to his neglected dinner.  
  
“I was worried,” Draco whispered, as if he had heard Harry’s thought and wanted to make sure that Harry didn’t shut down the Floo. “That was all. When I heard—when I read—” He opened his eyes. “They said you were all right, but they also said that you’d come close to death.”  
  
“Both things can’t really be true at once,” Harry said, sighing. “The  _Prophet_ likes to sell newspapers, and thus they insist on setting up stories that manage to twist the truth. I suppose that you could say I came close to death because the attacker  _could_ have wounded me if I wasn’t a good fighter. But I am. I was more worried about the people around me, honestly. There were a lot of children there.”  
  
Draco went on looking at him, but his face had softened and changed again. Then he asked, “Why didn’t you call me when you got home?”  
  
“Because I was hungry?” Harry asked, wondering what the hell was going on now. “It was kind of a full day.”  
  
“The shop, then, or wherever you were.” Draco flapped a hand that dismissed the exact location as unimportant. His gaze never left Harry’s face. Harry thought he could stick out his tongue and Draco would do no more than blink. “Didn’t you think I would want to know?”  
  
“Know about  _what_? I think we established that the newspaper was exaggerating and I didn’t really almost die the way they tried to imply I did.”  
  
Draco swallowed back something that was probably part of an indignant gasp. “Know about the attack.”  
  
“No,” said Harry blankly. “Why? I mean, I told George about it, but that was only because he was there and he wanted to know why I was all rumpled. I didn’t firecall Ron and Hermione. Why?”  
  
Draco just looked at him, and although Harry knew the expression on his face had changed again, this one wasn’t one he was already familiar with. He tried to maintain his calmness, but the way Draco stared at him was really getting on his nerves.  
  
“Didn’t you think I would want to know?” Draco finally whispered again, and Harry also knew the question had an inflection it hadn’t had before.  
  
He still didn’t know how to respond. He held out his hands helplessly. “What do you want me to  _say,_ Draco? This is my life, the way it is. People have been trying to kill me since I was a baby. It’s a shitty way to approach me, I agree. I would rather they came and sued me or spread nasty rumors about me or whatever the accepted way is of dealing with people that you don’t like. But there’s not much that I can do about it.” He paused, then added, “If you’re going to be friends with me, then you have to accept that that’s just the way it is. People will try to kill me sometimes. If you can’t stand that, then don’t be friends with me.”  
  
Silence, while Draco worked his hands in something invisible to Harry from his perspective outside the Floo. He wondered what he would do if Draco turned around and flung those words back in his face. Harry’s finger seemed to burn beneath the ring, and he rubbed it without thinking.  
  
Draco’s eyes shifted to the ring, then rose to Harry’s face. He gave a shrug that was probably supposed to be casual, and didn’t really come across that way. “I just want to know,” he whispered, “when my friends are facing danger.”  
  
“Even if it would upset you?” Harry pushed on when Draco hesitated. “Because you’re really the one who seems upset, more than Scorpius would get. Scorpius would probably enjoy hearing how I fought him.”  
  
Draco’s lips thinned. “You’re right about that,” he agreed, in a way that made Harry snort again. It seemed to promise no agreement with Scorpius’s taste. “But—yes, I would like to know. If this is the way that some people choose to approach you, then I want to know so I can offer you the protection of the Manor’s wards, at least.”  
  
Harry smiled. “I appreciate the thought, but I couldn’t just stay in the Manor all the time.”  
  
“Why not?  _I_ would, or at least go out with a house-elf ready to attend and protect me, if I had half the enemies you do.” Draco stared at him again. “Don’t your friends make any attempt to defend you?”  
  
“Ron does, when he’s there as someone attacks. He’s a fully-trained Auror, and I’m not. He’s saved my life more than once.”  
  
That seemed to confound Draco, and he paused again. Harry waited. He had the sense that this was something important, despite how much it seemed to rely on Draco’s stubborn unwillingness to comprehend basic facts, and so he would let Draco think it through and state the conclusions that he obviously needed to.  
  
“How can you live like that?” Draco asked finally. “I would spend every day in fear, even if I did have the wards and the house-elves to protect me.”  
  
“You get used to it,” Harry said. “Remember back to that horrible year you survived? You got used to it, a little, didn’t you? There comes a time when certain emotions just get numb. Like terror. You survive.”  
  
Draco dropped his eyes. “No one else has  _ever_ understood that.”  
  
“Well,” said Harry, and he knew his voice was soft and he was leaning forwards with one hand out to the fire, as though Draco was a timid wild animal he wanted to coax into the open, but he didn’t think those things were sins, however strangely they  _did_ make Draco look at him. “I do. We didn’t go through the exact same things, but we went through some damn similar things. And I could see through  _his_ eyes, sometimes. I saw some of what you suffered, and how much you didn’t want to do it.”  
  
“You mean, I don’t need to—say it?”  
  
“Talk about what happened during the war?” Harry asked. “Or apologize for it? No, neither one, not if you don’t want to.”  
  
“You’re so restful,” Draco said, voice so low that Harry only realized what he was saying after a moment of concentration. “But when do you get to rest? What happens if you want to talk about something that happened to  _you_ , and your friends don’t want to hear it?”  
  
“I could always tell my story to the papers and get an audience that way,” Harry said, and laughed when Draco’s eyebrows flickered up. “No, you’re right, I wouldn’t do that. But they’ll listen, if I want to talk.” He hesitated, then decided he might as well take the risk. What would happen, if he was rejected? Nothing but a little pain. “Just like I have the feeling you would.”  
  
“I would do more than listen.”  
  
“But what else is there?” Harry asked, and shook his head when Draco glared at him. “No, I’m not being disingenuous. You can’t change time, and the wounds are healed as much as they will be. What can you do?”  
  
Draco was silent for a while, one hand clasping open and shut. Then he said, “I can also talk about them and ask you questions about them.”  
  
“Well,” said Harry slowly. He didn’t see much point in hashing out his issues with his old friends, who understood them all already as intimately as Harry understood their own griefs and nightmares, but there might be something attractive in talking about them with Draco. “Maybe. At least once.”  
  
“Not more than that?”  
  
Harry rolled his eyes at that, a little. “Is this one of the ways that you want our friendship to be special and exclusive?”  
  
“It could be.” Draco’s face had gone still and quiet.  
  
Harry reached out one hand before he remembered that Draco was on the other side of a fire and he couldn’t cuff him. “I didn’t mean that I would never want to discuss things like this with you, you berk. And I don’t mean that I never want to discuss them with someone. It’s just, well, that’s the way things are. And my friends and I have talked about them all already.”  
  
“I could at least give you a new audience.”  
  
“I think it’s going to be more than that,” said Harry, looking into his face, “even if one of us wanted to plan to limit it.”  
  
Draco turned his eyes away for a second. Then he said, “What—what if, during the visit that you and Teddy make to the Manor, you and I go off and talk about the attack today?”  
  
“I thought I already told you all the details.”  
  
“Somehow, you managed not to focus very much on how you  _felt_.”  
  
Harry considered that, and nodded finally. “It’s not that I don’t want to discuss it,” he had to add again, when he saw the glow of triumph on Draco’s face. He didn’t want Draco to think all his friends were selfish and neglectful. “It’s just that my friends know everything already.”  
  
“If I’m to be a friend, then I should, as well.”  
  
“Can you return the favor with complete honesty?” Harry asked. “I know I said you didn’t have to, and you don’t, but I want to know what I should ask.”  
  
Draco paused. “That’s something I’ll have to think about, and decide what I might want to discuss, and what I don’t,” he said at last.  
  
“Fair enough,” said Harry. Draco lingered by the fireplace for a second, and Harry added, gently, “I really am fine, you know. Dawlish was one of the Aurors there. He’s always concerned about me, and he would have made me go to St. Mungo’s if I was wounded.”  
  
Draco sniffed. “At least someone among your friends has common sense.”  
  
Then he vanished from the fire in that abrupt way he seemed to favor, and Harry went to finish his dinner. He did have to cast a few Warming Charms on it, but he didn’t mind that. The pleasant glow of well-being in his stomach made up for the loss of any heat to the food. 


	13. A Wealth of Objections

“George said that you said Malfoy was a better friend than we are. So I wanted to come over and prove that he isn’t.”  
  
Harry blinked and sat up in his bed. Of course Ron was welcome to come into his house any time he wanted, and no wards would keep him out. But he still usually firecalled. He knew that Harry didn’t react to the sound of a Floo chime the way he reacted sometimes, still, to the sound of a voice when he’d been deeply asleep.  
  
“I didn’t say that, so I doubt George said exactly that,” said Harry dryly, and put his wand away. The scorch mark in the doorframe next to Ron’s cheek could be repaired later. And the spell hadn’t actually hit Ron, so apologies weren’t necessary. He was a bit pale. He’d get over that. “I did say that I accept and respect the problems George has had in healing from Fred’s loss. But Draco has managed to get the healing. So I’m more interested in a kind of friendship that’s about exploring new things with him.”  
  
Ron edged his way into the room and sat down on the foot of Harry’s bed, carefully. Harry did some more watching. He didn’t reach for his wand, because  _that_ wasn’t necessary now that he knew who it was. But he found both Ron’s announcement and the way he had decided to barge into Harry’s room bizarre, which meant he was going to leave most of the conversation up to Ron.  
  
“You don’t need to explore new things with him,” Ron muttered, and shook his head. “You have plenty of friends right here who you could—I don’t know, take up knitting with or something.”  
  
Harry had to grin. “Knitting sounds more like Molly’s idea than yours.”  
  
“Well, she seems to think that Hermione or me ought to make Rose some baby clothes on our own, and Hermione doesn’t listen to her, so it’s me.” Ron squinted at Harry. “And stop trying to change the subject. You don’t need Malfoy.”  
  
“What made George angry was this,” Harry said, and turned his hand so Ron could see the ring.  
  
Ron gaped at the ring for a long second, then shook his head. “And Malfoy gave that to you? It sounds more like a marriage proposal than a proposal of  _friendship_.”  
  
“Andromeda said it wasn’t,” said Harry. “And I reckon she ought to know. Her parents probably drummed the knowledge of all that kind of thing into her head.”  
  
“ _What_ thing? Rings?”  
  
Harry snorted a little. He appreciated the reminder that people who hadn’t been talking with Draco for the past few weeks still lived in a world where pure-blood customs were the strange and exceptional thing, instead of just usual.  
  
 _I suppose that’s the charm about being around Draco, though. He can start convincing you that the most unusual things are real. He draws me into his world._  
  
Ron interrupted before Harry could think any more about that. “What things?”  
  
“Pure-blood customs,” said Harry. “Draco asked me to call him by his first name, and he gave me a bunch of gifts and invited me to the Manor. I told you that already. Well, I accepted the ring, but I wanted to make sure that it wasn’t a marriage proposal  _of any kind_. Andromeda was the one who really set my mind at rest on that point.”  
  
Ron closed his eyes and massaged his forehead. “I just don’t understand why you would accept it at all.”  
  
“What I told George is the truth, as far as it went. It sounds like he exaggerated a little when he was talking to you about it. Or he was upset and angry,” Harry added, thinking of that conversation with George. He’d been back to the shop since then, but George had kept his face averted and spoken in monosyllables. Harry had finally given up on coaxing him back into full conversations. George would speak when he was ready, and trying to force him into it would probably be as great a mistake as the Healers trying to force him to talk about his connection with Fred had been.  
  
“You want new friends.”  
  
“I want  _new kinds of friendships_ ,” said Harry, and raised his voice a little. “The same thing I told George. I don’t want to abandon any of you for Draco, any more than I want to abandon him for you.”  
  
“But we can do everything you  _want_.”  
  
Harry winced, but said, “No. You can’t. I accept that you can’t. It would be pretty heartless of me not to,” he added, as Ron opened his mouth. “If I said that Hermione should just forget about her nightmares, and you should be perfectly okay with me talking to Draco, and George should stop missing Fred. If I said that Molly should be less overprotective of you, when she lost one of her children. But—I’ve moved on, Ron. I can’t be exactly the same, and I don’t want all of my friendships to be exactly the same, either.”  
  
Ron looked expressively at the scorch mark on the doorway. “That’s exceptional,” said Harry. “If I was going around blasting people all the time, then I would want to get help, or I would expect the Healers or the Aurors to put me away.”  
  
“You don’t expect them to put  _us_ away.”  
  
Harry reached out and gripped Ron’s shoulder roughly, feeling a hard pull at his heart. “No, but your pain is pretty harmless to other people,” he said. “To you, it’s strong and all-encompassing. I can help you with it as best as I can. I can’t heal you, though. I think—I think I also want friendships with people who won’t need my help as much.”  
  
Ron stared at his hands. Then he said, “I wish we could be better.”  
  
“Just to keep me from inappropriate friendships?” Harry put his other hand on Ron’s free shoulder, and kept it there until Ron looked up at him. “There are a lot of reasons I wish you were better, but that’s not one of them.”  
  
Ron gave him a wavering smile. “I know. But just think if we  _were_. It would make your life a lot easier.”  
  
“I would love you the way you were. That’s what I do.” Harry shoved at Ron’s shoulders, gently, until Ron got the hint and stood up. “Do you want to come over and have dinner with me tonight? You and Hermione and Rose, of course.”  
  
“Rose is in the stage where she wants to drop all her food on the floor.” Ron watched him from the corner of one eye. “Are you sure that you can put up with that?”  
  
Harry rolled his eyes. “Because cleaning spells are so difficult.”  
  
“She  _really_ mashes them in, I think she has accidental magic helping her,” Ron muttered, but he was smiling when he departed. Harry leaned on the door and watched him out of sight. Ron Apparated with less noise than usual. Harry knew that sometimes the level of noise that an Auror created was due to self-confidence.  
  
 _Good. I can’t stand it if they think that I’m casting them aside for Draco. I never would._  
  
*  
  
“There are more toys here than in the whole rest of the  _world_.”  
  
Teddy whispered those words to Harry as he ran through the dining room where Harry and Draco were still seated after lunch. Scorpius followed him, Golden in one hand and a complex shape made of several crystals in the other. Harry actually wasn’t sure what it was, unless it was like a Muggle toy he’d heard of that was meant as a puzzle to solve. Maybe you just matched shapes instead of colors.  
  
“Have fun!” Harry called after them, but he was pretty sure they were already out of earshot. He snorted and turned back to Draco. “You were saying?”  
  
Draco had seemed reserved all through lunch, touching his food and then retreating from it, as if his stomach was revolting. Harry had asked if he was sick, but Draco had only shaken his head briefly and refused to comment further. Admittedly, with Scorpius and Teddy interjecting constant little bundles of conversation, there was no reason for him to talk much, or time and room to be heard if he did.  
  
Draco put down his cup down and leaned forwards to look into Harry’s eyes, as though he assumed that would cause Harry to retreat. Harry only went on smiling and sipping his pumpkin juice, and finally said, “I know a thing or two about intimidation. You’re not going to make me regret coming here, no matter how hard you try.”  
  
Draco jumped, shook his head, and finally muttered, “I’m not trying to—do that. I’m just trying to understand how you could have faced death a few days ago, and yet you’re sitting here today and eating and drinking as if everything was normal.”  
  
“Hey.” Harry pointed his spoon at Draco. They were eating what Draco said was “pudding soup,” a concoction of clear soup with bits of chocolate and candied rose petals floating in it that Harry had to admit was delicious. “That little bastard took away my ice cream. It would be a bit much if I let him take away my appetite, too.”  
  
Draco blinked, maybe at the language, but said only, “It really is an everyday thing for you, isn’t it?”  
  
“Is that what you were watching me for, trying to see scars wrought by the battle?” Harry sighed. “No. I’m sorry you were worried, Draco. But he never touched me.”  
  
“How can you know the next one won’t? Or the one after that?” Draco’s hands closed hard enough on his bowl that Harry thought they might dent the silver.  
  
Harry reached over and gently loosened Draco’s fingers. If he bent the bowl, he would regret it later, although probably not now. Harry thought Draco would regret damaging or losing any of the beautiful things that filled the Manor. “I can’t know. And I don’t think they’ll leave me alone, either. The time passed since the war hasn’t persuaded them. I haven’t. The punishments that they receive all the time haven’t. These Risen Cobras go around calling themselves the heirs of the Death Eaters. People stupid enough to do that aren’t going to listen to ordinary persuasion.”  
  
His teeth grinding audibly, Draco stared at Harry. “But why doesn’t it affect you?”  
  
“It does,” said Harry quietly. “Be careful how you wake me up, if you ever come over to visit my house and come through the wards when I’m not awake. Ron nearly paid for it with a part of his ear this morning.”  
  
Draco said nothing, but he did ease back in his chair, which Harry was glad to see. “Then you go on—living your life like normal?”  
  
“That’s the choice I made,” said Harry. “It’s not as normal as you would think, beneath the surface. You’ve seen that already.” He grinned a little, thinking of the things that Draco had seen. “But I think that it’s normal enough to merit the word. I work and eat and sleep and live and fight when I have to. I take care of people. I enjoy being alive.”  
  
“Maybe that’s what I think is strange. The enjoyment instead of the fear.”  
  
Harry looked straight into his eyes. “Really? Because ever since I saw you in Diagon Alley that day, I’ve been thinking that you look like someone who’s learned to put the past behind him and pay his debts. And keep on living.”  
  
Draco’s mouth flattened in an odd way, and he shook his head. “I paid my debts. I didn’t enjoy doing it. Nothing—nothing pleased me about it.”  
  
“It was Azkaban, so I didn’t think so,” said Harry. “But aren’t you happy now? You seem happy to me whenever you look at Scorpius.”  _And whenever you look at me,_ but that was the kind of thing that he didn’t know if Draco would appreciate hearing.  
  
Draco looked off into the distance with an odd expression. Harry felt his heart stir a little, with pity. What a terrible thing, not to know if you were happy or not. Harry might have people who thought his happiness was strange after the life he had lived, but at least he knew it existed. He reached out and tightened his hold on Draco’s hand.  
  
That brought Draco back to him, or so it seemed. Draco did stir and blink and turn to him. “I’m happy when I look at Scorpius,” he said quietly. “I’m happy when I think that my prison sentence is done and I’ll never have to serve it again. I’m happy that some decisions that could have turned out horribly, like approaching you or divorcing Astoria, were the right things to do.”  
  
He paused. Harry found himself waiting, listening, more passionately than he could remember doing in years.   
  
“But I’m not happy most of the time.” Draco was talking almost to himself, and in the slow tones of a revelation. “Even though I don’t worry about money or survival. I wonder why not?”  
  
“It takes more than that,” said Harry. “And of course you can’t be happy all the time.” He paused for a second, then continued. “Do you think part of it is not having many people to share your life with? You can’t be with Scorpius all the time.”  
  
Draco drew himself up with his nostrils quivering, and tore his hand out of Harry’s. “I’ll have you know that  _plenty_ of people have wanted to spend time with me since the war.”  
  
“But mostly with Scorpius, right?” Harry asked, remembering what Draco had said to him once about some people only treating him nicely because of his son. “And you don’t visit them often or talk about them often. What, Draco? What can I offer you that they can’t?”  
  
Draco lowered his eyes to his hands again. Harry waited. He had learned patience after long nights of sitting by beds and reading patient, boring books to Hermione. And he still felt the same quiver running through him, the same longing to know.  
  
“Not as many as you have,” Draco said, finally, but Harry didn’t know what the start of the sentence meant and only looked at him. “But I  _do_ have friends.”  
  
“Maybe spend more time with them,” Harry said at once. “You’re not happy as you are, and I have to say, there’s nothing like friends for making you happy and changing your life.”  
  
“What do you think I’m  _doing_?”  
  
The way Draco jerked his head away told Harry what kind of misconception he was harboring. He reached out at once, laying his hand on Draco’s shoulder and ignoring it when he gave a pettish jerk. “Of course I’m a friend. I just don’t think I should be your only one.”  
  
“You’re the one I want to spend time with the most. And I told you, I  _do_ have more than one.”  
  
Harry raised a hand in a placating gesture. “Okay. Sorry for not believing you.” He grinned. “Then spending some more time with you…that’s something you’d be okay with?”  
  
Draco peered at him. “What made you think it wasn’t?”  
  
“Because I don’t know the pure-blood customs for this,” Harry pointed out. “And even this visit had to be arranged through getting Teddy and Scorpius together to play. And the last ones had to be obligations of hospitality or to return a gift. I didn’t know if you would take it well if I just asked you to come over.”  
  
Draco’s face turned a little red. “I would…accept it,” he said, with immense dignity that he undermined a second later by adding, “And how long have you thought the pure-blood customs were a load of bollocks?”  
  
“They’re obviously not to you, and I’m willing to go along with them. It’s not like they’ve hurt me so far. If they had, if you’d tried to trick me into doing something I didn’t want to do, then I would object.”  
  
Draco leaned back in his seat. “That’s why you were so obsessed with the ring possibly being a symbol of marriage. Because it would have meant you’d object, and you were worried about making me uncomfortable.” He sounded smug.  
  
“Yes,” said Harry, and rolled his eyes. “I don’t mind going along with these customs if you like them and they don’t hurt me. The minute they do hurt me, I’ll get rid of them or refuse to obey them.”  
  
Draco shrugged. He still sounded smug, and he was looking Harry directly in the face in a way that had been unusual throughout this conversation. “But I was that important to you. To put yourself out of the way to look up customs in books and give me gifts and do other things that didn’t matter to you, just because  _I_ mattered to you.”  
  
“Yes.” Harry raised an eyebrow. “Are you going to go get the dictionary and look up synonyms for ‘important’ so that you can continue repeating that?”  
  
Draco showed no sign of moving. His eyes had taken on a soft look, and he said, “You can ask me to come over. I can ask you to come over. And it doesn’t have to rely on gifts or traditions.”  
  
“Or traditions that you just made up out of thin air, either,” Harry added helpfully, and grinned at Draco’s look of outrage. “Yes, Draco. I’m your friend. With everything that means.”  
  
Draco bowed his head. Harry watched him in concern, especially as his shoulders shuddered. He might have done something to hurt him after all.  
  
But Draco looked back up, and his expression was indescribable as he said, “Thank you.”  
  
“You’re welcome,” Harry returned automatically, and the conversation moved on into other, less fraught areas.  
  
But the way Draco had looked at him stayed with him.  
  
 _Indescribable…except that I want to see it again._


	14. Offers and Acceptances

Harry hesitated in front of the jewelry shop for a long second. Then he snorted and stepped inside. Stand staring in the street any longer and someone would start spreading rumors that he was afraid of necklaces.  
  
“Yes? Can I help you?”  
  
The witch who came bustling towards him was the owner of the shop, Harry was sure. The same elegant one he had seen every day when he walked past it on the way to Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes, with blond hair piled on her head in a way that reminded him of Astoria Greengrass. Or maybe Narcissa Malfoy. She stopped short when she saw his scar.  
  
Harry ignored that, and smiled at her. “I need a piece of jewelry that would be appropriate to give a friend.”  
  
“Just a  _friend_?” Her voice dipped on the last word. Harry could imagine her trying to sneak off to the back of the shop and contact the  _Prophet_ through a fireplace once she had him settled with some jewelry.  
  
Harry sighed. “Yes. A friend. Someone who’s having a hard time in his life right now and could use a reminder that someone cares about him.”  
  
The witch blinked. “Oh.” Some of the eagerness went out of her posture, probably because everyone knew about the troubles that Ron and George were having. She glanced over her shoulder. “I have some bracelets in the back…”  
  
“That would be perfect.” Harry smiled. He was still a little wary of giving Draco a ring, both because of all the unknown pure-blood customs that might surround it and because he wanted to avoid just copying the gifts Draco had given him. And a necklace might be a strange gift for a man.  
  
 _On the other hand, maybe Draco would have no problem with it._ There was still so much that Harry didn’t know about those customs Draco seemed to live a large part of his life by. He was thinking of making another trip to Hogwarts and asking Neville for a second look at the books.  
  
The shopkeeper returned with a large tray of jewelry. Harry bent over the bracelets, automatically discarding some that had large jewels as too flashy. Then he realized that he was turning away from all the golden ones, too, and paused, a little confused. Had he remembered, subconsciously, something he’d read in the books?  
  
Then he laughed to himself.  _Right. Avoid the gold just like I’d avoid the rubies, because they were Gryffindor colors._  
  
“Sir?”  
  
Harry looked up. The hovering witch held out her hand. “I could bring out another tray for you to look at it, if these are less than satisfactory.”  
  
Harry shook his head and resisted the temptation to swat at her. “These are fine. Just let me have a minute to look, will you?”  
  
The woman’s mouth tumbled open a little, as though she hadn’t expected less than perfect courtesy from  _the_ Harry Potter. That was another reason Harry had tried to train the shopkeepers of Diagon Alley to see him as one of the ordinary people, honestly. It let him get away with more than he could if he’d had to maintain a heroic standard of bravery and politeness all the time.  
  
“Of course,” said the woman stiffly, and then turned and walked towards the back of the shop.  
  
Harry snorted and studied the bracelets again. He concentrated more on the silver ones and the ones with emeralds at first, but he didn’t find what he was looking for among them. Frowning, he widened his search. Maybe he would have to ask the woman to bring out the other trays after all, although he was reluctant to do it.  
  
“Harry?”  
  
Catching a glimpse of blond from the corner of his eye, Harry looked up, sharp words on his tongue about how someone he didn’t know at all shouldn’t be using his name. But this time, he was the one who gaped. “Daphne?” he asked at last.  
  
“Yes.” Daphne gave him a regal little nod, and didn’t smile. Harry was the one who did. When they had dated, he had been the one who did the smiling, and Daphne the one who did the nodding and glaring when people got too close. Harry hadn’t minded that. She did the vast majority of the talking in private, and it had been refreshing to find someone who thought he needed to know all about her, but the reporters who interviewed him didn’t.  
  
“What are you doing here?” Harry asked.  
  
“Looking for a gift, of course.” Daphne picked up one of the emerald-and-silver bracelets that Harry had already dismissed as too gaudy and slanted him a small glance. “My sister’s birthday is coming up.”  
  
“Of course,” said Harry, and rolled his eyes back at her. Daphne thought that he should remember the smallest details of her life and her family’s lives, years after they had broken up.  
  
“Who are you looking for?” Daphne studied him without jealousy—Harry had never thought she was jealous, either when they were dating or after, even when he spoke with Ginny. It was one of the reasons that he had decided to date her, the way she could hold herself aloof where so many people wouldn’t be able to.  
  
“I seem to have stumbled into a friendship with Draco. He wanted to give me gifts according to these pure-blood customs.” He held up the ring and watched Daphne watch it. “I’m looking for a bracelet that might cheer him up.”  
  
Daphne only nodded and returned to the bracelets herself. Soon she’d chosen a delicate silver affair, and taken it up to the shopkeeper. Harry returned to the browsing, sighing now and then. He saw nothing that looked like it would be good for Draco, but he had to remind himself that the only evidence he had of Draco’s taste was the ring on his finger.  
  
“Harry.”  
  
Slowly, Harry stirred to life and turned around to regard Daphne. “Yes?”  
  
“You might try that.” Daphne nodded to a bracelet near the far side of the tray that Harry had ignored as too small. “Draco loves platinum.”  
  
“He does?” Harry picked up the bracelet and turned it around. There was a delicate, wavering pattern of vines and leaves traced all over it, and he had to admit it was similar to the pattern on his ring. “But it looks too small for his wrist.”  
  
“Resizing charms.”  
  
Harry looked down at the ring on his finger. Right, Draco had said something about that, too, when Harry asked him how he had been able to be sure that the ring would fit Harry. “Thanks, Daphne. You’re a life-saver.”  
  
“Or relationship-saver, perhaps.” Daphne said that with a straight face, and left the shop. Harry shook his head at her back. There were times he had found her reserve restful, but now he thought he’d like someone with a bit more spark. In public  _and_ in private.  
  
“I’ll take this one,” he said to the shopkeeper, who looked up from what she was doing with books and ledgers, and focused on the bracelet with a sniff.  
  
“It isn’t very expensive or valuable,” she warned him, as she placed the bracelet in a scale.  
  
“All the better for me, then.”  
  
She shot him another quick glance. “But what about the person you’re gifting it to?”  
  
Harry opened his mouth to say that Draco wouldn’t care about how expensive the gift was, as long as it came from him, and then shut it again. That wasn’t true, was it? It would have been if he was talking about Ron or Hermione or any of his other, long-term friends, but Draco was used to pretty things and the best of the best. He probably  _would_ like an expensive gift.  
  
“Do you want another one, with bigger gems?” The shopkeeper brushed her hair out of her eyes and picked up something from the table in front of her that was so gaudy with rubies even Harry flinched away from it on instinct. “Or perhaps an inscription on this bracelet? That would increase the personal value.” This time, her smile looked almost polite. “And the cost, of course.”  
  
Harry then stood there trying to think of a suitable inscription. The problem was that he would have known what to give Ginny, or Daphne, or Ron, or Hermione, or George, or Molly, or Teddy, or Andromeda. But Draco didn’t seem to fit into any of those categories.  
  
He looked at the pattern of vines and leaves on the bracelets again, so similar to the one on his ring, and made up his mind.  
  
“To Draco. May what bonds us grow,” he said.  
  
The shokeeper’s glance this time was wondering, but she shook her head and took out the wand and the small, delicate diamond chisel that would make the inscription. Harry settled back to watch her. If necessary, he intended to make sure she knew how unwise attempting to gossip about this to anyone else would be.  
  
But she probably already did. Harry had done his best to make himself appear ordinary in Diagon Alley and not someone other people needed to give homage to, but that didn’t mean making himself into someone who would passively take insults and rumors being spread about him.  
  
*  
  
“I was getting impatient with not seeing you, so I decided to come and give you this. I was thinking of you when I bought it.”  
  
Draco had opened the door of Malfoy Manor himself, with a welcoming smile on his face, but now the smile had dropped off, and he stood there, staring at the bracelet Harry held as if he had never seen anything less lovely in his life. He leaned over and picked it up, but only so he could see the pattern of leaves and vines on it, and then turn it over and read the inscription. Still he didn’t say anything.  
  
“Did I do something?” Harry had to ask. The gravel was getting uncomfortable under his feet, and he had been looking forward to an actual welcome, not something he would regret. “Was I not supposed to return the gift you gave me? Or return it with a ring?” That would be the most plausible answer as to why Draco was standing there with his mouth open, he thought. Some pure-blood custom he had tripped into without understanding what he was doing. Well, Harry didn’t intend to make Draco abide by anything he didn’t want to abide by, either.  
  
“Just because I gave it to you doesn’t mean you  _have_ to keep it.” Harry extended his hand for the bracelet again.  
  
“If you understood how I wanted it,” Draco breathed, and looked up at him.  
  
There were tears standing in his eyes. Harry stared back, unnerved, but certain something was very, very wrong.  
  
Then he shook himself. Seeing Draco weep was unexpected, but Harry had means of dealing with things like this. He nodded. “Do you need to sit down?” he asked, stepping into the Manor and pressing past Draco without waiting for an invitation. At a time like this, he knew there were more important things. “What about water? Do you want me to get one of the house-elves? Or do you want Scorpius? Do you want me to read to you?”  
  
In an instant, Draco snapped his spine up and whirled around to face him. “I’m not one of your many weak-willed friends,” he breathed. “And  _this,_ ” and he shook the bracelet, “is wonderful. What you did with it is wonderful.”  
  
“They’re not weak-willed,” Harry snapped back before he thought about it.  
  
Draco rolled his eyes. “Out of everything I said, you choose to focus on that. I suppose I can see where your priorities lie.” He slipped the bracelet around his wrist, and it sized itself to fit immediately.  
  
“They’re not,” said Harry. “And you wouldn’t be, either, if you wanted to demonstrate some sort of weakness in front of me.”  
  
Draco eyed him sideways. “Do you want to know why I accepted the bracelet? And what you were saying by giving it to me?”  
  
“The first part first,” said Harry grumpily, and leaned back against the wall, eyeing Draco closely. Yes, fine, it was probably strange of him to react as though Draco was about to faint when he started to express a strong emotion, but he’d had so  _much_ experience with his friends when they were like that…  
  
And his friends were different from most people, and wasn’t that one reason he had wanted the friendship with Draco in the  _first_ place?  
  
Harry smiled thinly. Yes, all right, he could laugh at himself when he needed to, and he could still make mistakes.  
  
“I accepted the bracelet because I love the look of it,” Draco said. “And because it’s a gift from you, someone I would always want to accept gifts from.”  
  
“There might be times when you can’t accept gifts from me?” Harry guessed. “Is it because of what the gifts are, or because of me being the one to bring them?”  
  
“Both,” said Draco. “In this case, it’s the combination of the inscription on the bracelet and the fact that it looks like your ring that caused my reaction.” He caressed the outside of the bracelet in a way that told Harry he had no intention of giving it up, no matter what the pure-blood customs might say. Harry relaxed a little. He hadn’t realized how intently he wanted Draco to keep his bracelet, but he did.  
  
“How?”   
  
It was a simple enough question, and Draco had already promised him the answer anyway, but still Draco hesitated. Harry controlled his impatience with an effort. He had asked the question. He trusted Draco to have good reasons to wait to tell him.  
  
Draco finally sighed and said, “Because the inscription speaks of bonding, and the similarity between two gifts implies a tight circle.”  
  
“A circle of  _what_?” Harry said. “I thought you said the ring promised an exclusive friendship, and if the bracelet looks like it, it should promise the same thing.”  
  
“If it was another ring, it would have.” Draco’s voice was low and charged with something that Harry wondered if either of them could name. He moved a step forwards, then seemed to decide it made more sense to stay where he was, and moved away again. Harry was getting a bit tired of the hesitations, no matter how much sense they might make.   
  
“Then what does it mean?” Harry asked. “What’s the circle, if not friendship?”  
  
Draco looked at him.  
  
“ _Tell_ me that I didn’t propose marriage to you,” Harry said.  _Honestly._ After all that research into pure-blood customs, and worrying that the ring Draco had given him was a proposal, he had only gone and proposed to Draco without realizing what he was doing!  
  
“It doesn’t connote marriage right away,” said Draco, and one hand settled on the bracelet as though Harry would have to break his arm to get it off. Harry wouldn’t consider that, but he  _was_ considering a Summoning Charm. “It does mean a courtship, and a certain—exclusivity. If we don’t date, we’re still expected not to date anyone else, and to remain chaste.”  
  
Harry frowned. “If I  _had_ decided to court or date you, then remaining chaste wouldn’t exactly be the first thing on my mind.”  
  
And Draco blushed like someone had painted his face red. He lowered his head, but not before Harry had seen that. He smiled a little. “No wonder you were hesitant to take the bracelet,” he said.  
  
Draco nodded, still focused on the floor. “It’s beautiful, and I did want a gift from you. But I knew that you probably didn’t know what you were doing.”  
  
Harry coughed, and waited until Draco looked up at him. “This is me, remember? Muggle-raised half-blood? How did you get so far as thinking even  _probably_?”  
  
Draco raised an eyebrow, managing to look haughty despite his blush. “I thought you might have decided to study some of the marriage customs in order to propose courtship in a way I would recognize.”  
  
“I don’t—I don’t want to marry anybody,” said Harry. “Not right now, and maybe not ever. I wouldn’t say that to hurt you, but it’s just the truth.” He was feeling his way slowly through the words, trying to find a good way to tell that truth. “I hope that you’re not too hurt.”  
  
Draco drew in a deep breath and tried to smile. “I knew that being courted by Harry Potter was good fortune beyond what I could deserve.”  
  
“You would completely deserve any good fortune that came your way,” said Harry, and Draco blinked and touched one hand to his forehead as though he didn’t understand Harry’s ferocity.  _He’s my friend, and he still doesn’t know I defend my friends?_ But Harry had something more important to say. “But why would you consider being courted by me good fortune anyway? I don’t understand.”  
  
“You can’t see yourself from the outside,” said Draco, with utter simplicity. “Otherwise, you would understand.”  
  
“I have enemies threatening my life all the time. I have friends you can’t stand, or you think are weak, anyway.” As far as Harry knew, Draco hadn’t actually met any of his friends except George since the war. “I have newspapers who pounce on every rumor concerning me. And it’s not like I grew up with the traditions you value, either. What in the  _world_ —”  
  
“You’re kind to me,” Draco interrupted, with a still, small voice that nevertheless shut Harry up at once. “You’re good to Scorpius. You genuinely like him. I think you’re coming to like me. You shine with strength and power and impatience and the ability to get your own way. You survived the war in a way I never imagined anyone could survive it.” He looked straight at Harry, motionless except for his other hand toying with the bracelet. “Yes, I’d consider being courted by you good fortune.” He swallowed, as though the air to speak the next words would scorch his lungs. “And an honor.”  
  
Harry had no idea what to say. He didn’t want to be dishonest. He didn’t know if he should be honest, and say that he had never really considered the idea of courting anyone, and certainly not by the pure-blood customs that Draco valued so highly.  
  
He finally came forwards and laid his hand on the bracelet. Draco tightened his hold on it and narrowed his eyes a little, telling Harry the battle he would face if he intended to reclaim it.  
  
Harry only smiled and held Draco’s eyes for a moment. “I don’t know if I can say that it’s courtship yet,” he said. “But can we take it slowly and see if it happens?”  
  
Draco’s smile shone like an uncovered treasure, and he placed his hand over Harry’s. “I never thought it would happen otherwise.”


	15. Goggle Eyes

“I’d like to go through those books on pure-blood customs in the library again, if you don’t mind.”  
  
Harry waited. Then he waited some more. Then he sighed and waved his hand in front of Neville’s staring eyes, snapping his fingers at the same time.  
  
Neville finally stopped goggling at the bracelet on Draco’s wrist and swung around to face Harry. “You can use them, of course you can,” he said, and Harry thought he was talking fast in an effort to keep himself from staring at Draco’s bracelet and Harry’s ring. He hadn’t seemed all that surprised when Draco and Harry showed up at Hogwarts together, but that was before he’d noticed their jewelry. “I think you really  _need_ to.”  
  
“Well, I am,” said Harry, not understanding. Was there yet something else about the bracelet and the ring and the combination thereof that no one had told him?  
  
But Neville abruptly turned to Draco instead of going on with his interrogation of Harry. “Are you treating him right?” he demanded. “You haven’t lied to him or tried to cast the Imperius Curse on him or anything?”  
  
Draco looked at Neville with a kind of patience Harry wouldn’t have credited him with only a month ago. “No,” he said. “I actually was going to refuse the bracelet at first, when I saw how similar it looked to the ring. But he bought the gift for me on his own, because he thought it would look nice, and because he thought it would suit my taste since I bought a ring for him that looked like it. You should know Harry by now,” he added, when Neville did nothing to relax his suspicious stance. “This is the sort of luck he stumbles into  _all the time_.”  
  
Luckily, at least,  _that_ made Neville snort and turn back to look at Harry again. “Mate, I don’t know how you keep doing this.”  
  
“I don’t have a set of pure-blood reference books at home,” Harry replied promptly. “Can we go to the library now?”  
  
“I still want to know a little more about this.” Neville shook his head in wonder and leaned back against the desk. “You bought the bracelet knowing nothing about it except that it would look good with the ring?”  
  
“Well, at first I was looking at silver ones. But Daphne saw me in there where she was buying something for Astoria’s birthday and told me that Draco liked the platinum ones.”  
  
Draco turned neatly on one heel and looked Harry in the face, in a way that might have been peaceful if not for the furious burning of his eyes. “You didn’t tell me  _that_.”  
  
“It slipped my mind,” said Harry, with a shrug. “I assumed you would have known that Daphne and I used to date anyway, because she’s Astoria’s sister.”  
  
“ _Used_ to, then.”  
  
“Stop being jealous,” Harry said. “I don’t like the way it distorts your face.”  
  
Draco blinked at him, left his jaw open for a second, and closed it only when Neville snickered. “Harry Potter, yes indeed,” said Neville, and continued before Harry or Draco could say anything. “Daphne could have known about what kind of statement that bracelet would make, wouldn’t she, Harry? She’s pure-blood.”  
  
Harry shrugged. “Sure, she could have, I suppose. But if she was really intent on having me back, the way I can see Draco thinks she was, she would have told me about a bracelet that would give entirely the wrong message. Instead, she told me that Draco likes platinum, and I don’t think she was wrong about that, was she?” He threw Draco a significant look.  
  
“No,” Draco admitted, slowly, as if someone was pulling the words out of him with hooks. “I just want to know why she was in that shop. Especially since Astoria’s birthday isn’t until  _April._ ”  
  
“Maybe she does her shopping early,” Harry offered, but sighed at the withering look that Draco threw him. “Seriously, Draco, she accepted the breakup gracefully, and that was more than five years ago. I think she would have done something about it before now if she wanted to date me again.”  
  
“Maybe she was content as long as you didn’t date anyone  _else_.”  
  
“No,” Harry said, after thinking about it for a moment. “That’s not Daphne. She would be straightforward in her actions if she wanted me to do something. She knows that it’s the only way to get me to do it.”  
  
“Then she was acting as Astoria’s spy.”  
  
“Spying on me because I went into a jewelry shop?” Harry blinked a little at Draco. “You must think that everyone in the world is interested in dating the people you’re interested in dating.”  
  
Neville was looking back and forth between them as if watching a particularly entertaining Quidditch match. Harry thought that was what made Draco flush and close a hard hand on his wrist. “Excuse us,” he said to Neville. “We do have some books to study, in hopes that this  _same_ mistake doesn’t happen again.”  
  
“Maybe it wasn’t a mistake,” said Neville, thoughtfully enough to make Draco stare at him.  
  
“Not a bad mistake, is what he means,” Harry explained to Draco, and towed him out of the room before Draco could hold his wand to Neville’s throat or something.  
  
On their way to the library, Harry tried and failed to wrestle with the problem of Draco’s jealousy. He had never thought about someone reacting that way, really. Ginny had been a spectacularly un-jealous person, and Daphne a spectacularly self-confident one. Ginny would never have thought that Harry was cheating on her unless she saw the proof with her own eyes, and Daphne had believed she, herself, was too awesome ever to worry seriously about it.  
  
So this was new.   
  
Harry had to smile. Wasn’t that what he had wanted, a new way to live with people, a new set of challenges?  
  
Of course he wasn’t going to get them only in the aspects that had to do with the pain and the terror of the past.  
  
“What are you grinning about?”  
  
Draco’s voice was sulky. Harry nudged Draco’s shoulder with his and moved his hand upwards for a second, so he could see both his ring and Draco’s bracelet at the same time. “Tell you later,” he muttered. “In the meantime, why don’t we see what we can find in those books?”  
  
*  
  
“Why does it  _matter_ if the bracelet is set with garnets instead of rubies?” Harry asked thin air. “Could someone even tell the difference between rubies and garnets at a glance?”  
  
Draco looked up from the book that was spread out in front of him, a tome that Harry didn’t think he himself had consulted last time. At least Draco was in good humor again; his eyes glinted as he pushed the book aside and leaned forwards to study Harry. “Any pure-blood with a trained eye could,” he said. “What have you been  _doing_ with yourself, not to have that eye? I thought Aurors got some training in recognizing gems because they might have to deal with valuable stolen property that has them.”  
  
“I’m not an Auror,” Harry said, and pushed his own book aside. He had started flipping through the pages and wandered into territory that didn’t matter when it came to the gifts he and Draco had already exchanged. He definitely wasn’t going to go find another bracelet set with garnets and give it to Draco. “I only had a little bit of training from them.”  
  
“Enough that you think you can protect yourself all the time, and you don’t even need someone to help you or save your life.”  
  
“It’s not that I think I don’t need any help.” Harry picked up the next book, warily. It wasn’t about gifts, at least not going by the title, and the pages were of such thick parchment that they looked as if they would cut his fingers all over. “I would take help if it was there. It would be nice. But most of the time, the Risen Cobras or whoever’s attacking me this week doesn’t do the favor of calling ahead.”  
  
“Did someone ever call you and say that he was going to do you the favor?” Draco still hadn’t opened his book again.  
  
“Once,” Harry admitted. The firecall had come in when he was about to leave to go to Ron and Hermione’s, and he had thought it was a joke, but just in case, he had contacted the Aurors. The man had been waiting at Ron and Hermione’s house after all. The Aurors had taken him handily away, and Harry had been able to have a peaceful dinner with his friends.  
  
“You live the strangest life,” Draco breathed, but he sounded intrigued instead of upset.  
  
“One that I still hope to fit you into,” Harry said, and returned to his book, basking a little in Draco’s contented smile.  
  
They went on looking for almost half an hour, and then Draco said, “This is the shortest and clearest explanation that we’re going to find, I shouldn’t wonder.” Carefully, he turned the book he held around and pushed it towards Harry.  
  
Harry bent over eagerly to read it. There was a picture of a bracelet, paired with a ring. Neither looked like the one he had given Draco or received from him, but they did look alike, with a weird braided structure. Harry reached out and traced a finger down their ink lines before he turned back to the explanation.  
  
 _A ring given to a friend with the intention of an exclusive friendship need not be returned with jewelry. (For the consequences of not returning the gift, see page 771). But when the ring is returned with the gift of a bracelet that looks alike, it means the commitment, the deepening and softening, of that relationship. There are only so many ways that a friendship can deepen, and most of them require life-saving and intense experiences of the sort that cannot be manufactured._  
  
Harry thought immediately of his friendships with Ron and Hermione.  
  
 _The relationship created by the paired bracelet and ring will be an exclusive one, in the sense that both participants will reveal secrets to each other that they will reveal to no one else, and they will not make large decisions, of the kind that change their lives, without consulting each other._  
  
 _The relationship so created will be a deep one, in that it implies an absolute trust and a delight in each other’s company, so that they would rather spend time with each other than do anything else._  
  
 _The relationship will be a soft one, in that pain is not invited to be part of it._  
  
Harry raised his eyebrows at the last line and looked at Draco. “I don’t know about that last one. Pain might come along whether or not it’s invited.”  
  
Draco sniffed at him and laid a hand on his book. “But neither of us makes an effort to seek it out. These kinds of gifts would be inappropriate to commemorate or begin a relationship that included a great deal of mutual anger.” He lowered his voice. “You can see now why I reacted the way you did when you gave me the bracelet.”  
  
“Yes,” said Harry. “You thought I meant all those things.”  
  
He waited. Draco waited. Finally, he nodded. “Yes, I did,” he said.  
  
“But you also  _wanted_ all those things,” Harry said, finally realizing what Draco must have been waiting for. “With me.”  
  
“I wanted you to offer them,” Draco said, and his lips moved a little in what looked like a snarl. “I would never have asked you for them.”  
  
That puzzled Harry. Draco had been the one to insist that he deserved a “reward” for helping Draco and Scorpius in Diagon Alley; he had been the one who pushed things along when Harry would have been just as happy for him to go away again. “You—didn’t want them unless they were freely offered?”  
  
“Yes,” said Draco. “And then I realized that it was going to be another mistake, like the one with the silver mirror, and I was miserable. Both because I wanted them for real and because I realized there was no way that you would understand it without some kind of explanation.” He reached out and took Harry’s wrist.  
  
“Even with explanations, I don’t feel them in the blood and the bone, like you do,” said Harry, and took his hand. “That’s the thing you have to remember, if we’re going to use these customs. I can learn them. It would take me a long time to learn how to feel them.”  
  
“I can wait,” said Draco. “We’re both young, and we’re not making each other very unhappy yet. I can hope that we have the time.”  
  
Harry smiled back at him, and then looked down at the book Draco had given him again. “But this doesn’t say anything about dating or courtship.”  
  
“Well, it does say that there’s only so many ways a friendship can deepen.” Draco took back his hand and began playing with the edge of the page. “It doesn’t—it’s not restrictive in what  _kind_ of relationship gets developed, because sometimes people like each other but don’t want to marry each other. They just date. Instead of court.”  
  
Harry sat there, thinking about that. On the one hand, he really did want to make Draco happy and soothe his distress. He would want to do the same thing if he had got Ron or Hermione or George a gift that was a kind of mistake and hurt them. They were his friends. He _always_  wanted his friends to be happy.  
  
On the other hand, he didn’t want to marry a friend merely to make them happy. So he leaned forwards and asked, “You want courting? You want marriage?”  
  
Draco didn’t seem able to look at him as he nodded.  
  
“Even with someone who doesn’t feel those customs the way you do? And someone whose life is constantly threatened?”  
  
“We already had this conversation when you first presented me with the bracelet.” Draco turned back towards Harry as if someone had pushed him. “Yes. I value you, and I would want that.”  
  
“I’m not sure that I want to marry anyone,” said Harry. “That’s the main problem with this. If I go along with it just to give it a chance, or to make you happy, there’s no saying that I’ll absolutely want marriage at the end of it.”  
  
“ _Don’t_ go along with it just to make me happy.” This time, Draco caught his hand harshly enough to make Harry’s fingers sting. “That’s not something I want, either.”  
  
“I’m saying that I feel the impulse to,” said Harry, and folded Draco’s fingers back away from his wrist. “Not that I absolutely would.”  
  
Draco stared at him, apparently measuring what Harry meant from his eyes, and then snorted and leaned back. “Don’t scare me like that.”  
  
Harry smiled at him. “So. You still didn’t answer my question. Could you really be happy with someone who doesn’t feel the customs the way you do?”  
  
“I did.”  
  
“Not by itself,” Harry said. “I know that you can value me even though I’m different from you, because I can value you the same way. But this is different. The customs are pretty important to you. They’re what you chose to start our whole interactions with, and maybe structure them around. Can you continue being with me knowing that I’ll never love the customs the way you do?”  
  
Draco hesitated, and Harry held his breath. No, he didn’t intend to marry anyone right now. No, he didn’t know if he wanted to be with a man. It wasn’t a possibility that had occurred to him before now, because he dated so few people. Maybe he would reject it, maybe not.   
  
Draco was still the one who would have to make the most important decision.  
  
Draco finally swallowed, and looked into his eyes. “Would you be willing to buy some of these books, or ones like them, and study them so that you can try not to make the same kinds of mistakes that you have so far?”  
  
Harry nodded.  
  
Draco nodded back. “You being you, and being so willing to do something for me, is more than enough.”  
  
 _This is different from anyone else in my life,_  Harry thought, reaching out and tapping Draco’s bracelet with one finger, so that it spun and glittered.  _I’m glad to know that I’m the same for him._


	16. Hermione Has Her Say

Harry leaned back and lifted the letter towards the light. Then he cast several charms on it that would dispel various glamours and other hiding spells and let him know if someone other than Hermione had written it, as seemed likely, and was just trying to disguise their handwriting.  
  
But no, it was still the same after he had done all that, which likely meant that Hermione had thought through the advantages and disadvantages of confronting him this way, and seen enough advantages to go ahead and do it after all.  
  
With a little sigh, Harry turned the letter back so that he could read it. Maybe it wouldn’t sound so bad the second time around.  
  
 _Harry_ ,  
  
 _I really think you need to reconsider this relationship that you’re getting into with Malfoy. That shopkeeper who was all over the_ Prophet  _this morning about you buying a bracelet didn’t know who it was for, but I can guess. And I read about pure-blood customs, and I know what a bracelet like that means when you give it to someone in return for a ring._  
  
 _I know that you saw Daphne in that shop, too. It was in that article. Maybe she wouldn’t deliberately give you bad advice, but you know I never completely trusted her._  
  
 _Can you come over and talk today in the evening, after dinner? Ron has agreed to take Rose so that we can have some privacy._  
  
No, Harry decided after he had finished reading it, it wasn’t as bad as the first time around. It was worse.  
  
He sat back and thought of all the ways that Hermione had showed her concern in that short letter, ways that someone who wasn’t familiar with her would never understand:  
  
First, she had written to him at all, instead of trusting him to manage his own relationship. He knew that Ron and Hermione had thought breaking up with Ginny was a bad idea, and they also hadn’t much liked it when he was dating Daphne, but they had given him the courtesy of making up his mind about that on his own, and kept quiet.  
  
Second, she had turned to the  _Prophet_ for information when she usually considered the paper and most people who wrote for it lying pieces of shite.   
  
Third, she had more than implied that Ron wouldn’t be involved in this conversation; she had outright stated it. That meant Ron disagreed with her about interfering in Harry’s relationship with Draco, maybe because he had already spoken to Harry and got reassurance, so he didn’t see the harm in it.  
  
It was all so complicated and tangled and confused and such a mess that Harry had to laugh.  
  
He looked down at the ring on his finger and shook his head. He was sure that Draco had never considered what kind of a center of a storm that ring would become when he had given it to Harry.  
  
“Well, we do what we have to,” he said aloud, and then wrote back to Hermione before he could change his mind or more time would pass by.  
  
*  
  
“Thanks for coming, Harry.”  
  
Hermione looked quieter than usual, which meant less shadows under her eyes and a voice that didn’t sound hoarse and tired. Harry looked at her keenly as he sat down in the worn blue chair in the drawing room that was usually his, when he was here and had time to sit down. Faint happy shrieks came from Rose’s bedroom, behind a firmly closed door.  
  
“You didn’t have as many nightmares last night?” he asked.  
  
Hermione paused and shot him a smooth, exasperated look. “No, I didn’t. And I won’t even ask you how you knew that.”  
  
Harry shrugged a little. It was obvious to anyone who knew Hermione, the same way the serious tone and content of her letter, and her objections, had been. If he had worn his trauma closer to the surface of his skin, his friends would have been able to read him the same way.  
  
“Well.” Hermione settled in front of him, and settled her robes around her at the same time. The way she peered at Harry’s face was so earnest that Harry bit his lip to stifle a chuckle. “I dare say you know that I don’t like this alliance with Malfoy.”  
  
“It’s more a friendship than an alliance right now.” Harry thought he owed her the truth. “And it has a bit of courting behavior mixed in, too.”  
  
Hermione looked a little green. “So I was right about what the gifts of the bracelet and the ring meant?”  
  
Harry snorted. “You were. Although  _I_  didn’t know. Draco is making me buy books on pure-blood customs that I can study so I won’t make the same mistake, or similar ones, again.”  
  
Hermione shook her head. “If he’s making you do things, that speaks to the coercive nature of the relationship. I should have thought you would rather avoid things like that.”  
  
Harry stared at her without blinking for a second, then replied, “He’s making me do it the way that you make me child-proof the house when you bring Rose over.”   
  
Hermione flushed faintly and looked off to the side. But her voice still sounded as strong and determined as ever when she spoke. “Then you won’t consider doing something else? Maybe finding a nice girl to date?”  
  
“I had nice girls,” Harry said. “Ginny was a nice one. Daphne was a nice one once you got past her outer exterior.” Hermione shook her head a little, which Harry had expected, but they’d stopped arguing about Daphne a long time ago. “And Draco is nice in some ways. He adores his son. He’s devoted to his pure-blood customs.”  
  
Hermione did face him again that time, although Harry thought that was more the effect of startled curiosity than anything else. “I would have thought that last thing would be objectionable to you.”  
  
Harry paused, deciding how to phrase it, and then shrugged. “He’s oddly sweet when he’s so obsessed with them. And he hasn’t brought up any of them that are about blood purity or any other nonsense like that yet.”  
  
“If he did, would you leave him?” Hermione almost hovered on the edge of her seat.  
  
“As fast as I would leave you or Ron if you started talking about how I hadn’t done enough to help you and I should use my fame to make you wealthy.”  
  
That startled Hermione enough to make her collapse backwards. She opened her mouth once, then closed it again, and finally said, “We’re not talking about us.”  
  
“Yes, we are,” Harry said. “Isn’t this all about the objections that you’re making to Draco? Because if it isn’t, I’m really confused about what I’m here for.”  
  
Hermione moaned softly and let her head fall into her hands. “This is about our concern for you as our friend,” she said. “Or maybe I should say my concern, since Ron isn’t here and taking part in this conversation.”  
  
“Yeah, I explained it to Ron already.” Harry reached out to pat her hand. “I know, Hermione. And I respect what you’ve had to go through. I don’t expect you ever to see or talk to him.”  
  
“Even if you start dating him?”  
  
“Even then,” said Harry softly, and held her stare when she looked up. “I never brought Daphne here, did I? You saw her sometimes, but only over at my house, and only when you came over without firecalling first. You couldn’t abide her because she was a Slytherin. I know what you and Ron can tolerate. I won’t ask you to tolerate more.”  
  
“That’s—that’s sad, though,” Hermione said, drifting on to another tangent. “That you can’t bring the person you’re dating over to see your family, ever.”  
  
“Draco and I aren’t dating, exactly,” Harry said. “But I can think of a lot of sadder things. Like not surviving the war.”  
  
“It isn’t the same thing.”  
  
“I know,” Harry said. “But I never brought Daphne over to see Molly, either. I think I’m just used to it.”  _Not to mention the nightmare that it would have been even trying to introduce Ginny to the Dursleys, never mind anyone else._ But that was the kind of thing he would keep to himself. He didn’t like to talk about the Dursleys.  
  
“I wish you could have a more normal life.” Hermione looked at him mistily. “Without the constant readjustments and problems that you have when you’re trying to take care of us  _and_ live your life at the same time.”  
  
“This is the life I chose,” Harry said. “Honestly, Hermione. Do you think I would put up with something I didn’t like? When I made the decisions to leave Auror training and stop dating Ginny and do all sorts of other things that could have brought down public pressure on my head?” Well, to be fair, those had brought public pressure, but less than Harry had thought they would, and nothing he couldn’t handle.  
  
“Yes, but.” Hermione was frowning, searching for the words she wanted. Harry let the conversation drift into silence as he waited for her to do it. Hermione was staring hard at her nails, and since she never painted them like some women did, that was a sign of intense concentration.  
  
“I would feel easier if I knew you were happy,” Hermione said, looking up. “If you were making decisions that I thought were likely to lead to you being happier still. Instead, I just think they’re leading to heartbreak.”  
  
“There’s a sign that you are a good friend,” Harry said, and got up to kiss her on the forehead. “Because, in between all the other things you have to worry about, your daughter and your nightmares and your job and Ron, you remember to worry about me, too.”  
  
Her hand caught his, strong as marble. “Are you happy?”  
  
“Yes,” said Harry, and turned his hand to clasp hers. “Not always, not all the time, but a lot happier than you would think if you were reading about my life as one of your case reports.”  
  
Hermione gave a dry snort. “Happier than house-elves.”  
  
“Definitely.”  
  
Hermione held his hand for one more moment, lingering, then let him go reluctantly. “If there’s ever anything you need help with, if things get too overwhelming, if you need a place to run away from Malfoy and bitch about pure-blood customs without him overhearing—”  
  
“Oh, I reckoned that you’d offer your house for that anyway,” said Harry. “See how selfish I am? Just  _assuming_ that my best friends have the time and space to spare for me?”  
  
He won a genuine smile from Hermione, and that was a rare enough sight to make it worth any sacrifice.  
  
*  
  
“So the shape of the  _room_ you offer the gift in matters, too?” Harry muttered, and laid the book down, shaking his head. “For fuck’s sake.”  
  
He would still do his best to learn the pure-blood customs, because he had promised Draco, but he was starting to think it was the sort of thing that was best learned young, like maths or reading. You had to keep the gift itself and the occasion and the material the gift was made of and the blood status of the person you were offering it to and now, apparently, the shape of the bloody room, all in mind at the same time, interacting, spiraling out into more and more complexity as they built. Draco and anyone else trained to it when they were young could probably do it with ease. Harry didn’t want to haul along a thick book and consult it every six seconds when he was speaking to Draco, but that was probably what was going to happen.  
  
He’d spent the entire morning in the library with his new pure-blood customs books, a small room near the back of his home that Hermione kept pestering him to add more light than a fireplace to and which Harry kept promising he would without getting around to it. Now, he blinked, dazed, as he stepped out of the dim room into the bright kitchen, and that was the only excuse for not noticing what happened next.  
  
The attack caught him high on the shoulder, a blast of force and fury that hurled him into the wall. Harry groaned as his body hit hard enough to make something rebound  _inside_ his shoulder. It was his right arm, and that was going to give him a hell of a time drawing his wand.  
  
Those thoughts poured through his head like clear water while he fell smoothly to his knees and made his way in a furious crawl towards the kitchen table. Best to get to shelter, and with the dazzle he hadn’t yet seen his enemy—  
  
Another spell hit him, and his hands went numb.  _Shit_. Harry didn’t know that one. He jackknifed onto his back and lashed out blindly with one foot, or not so blindly, as one of the dark blurs in front of him lurched forwards.  
  
 _There’s more than one of them. Shit._  
  
That particular blur stumbled as Harry kicked him, and sounded winded when he went down. But there were another two pressing forwards, and his hands were still numb, and he was cornered, and he had nowhere to go, and his blood was pounding with fear in a way that it hadn’t in years.  
  
Nowhere to go, except the place Draco had given him, and which Harry was reluctant to use. His hands tingled as he reached down and yanked at the ring. It sprang to life warmly under his fingers. Maybe some of the numbness was going away, if he could feel that.  
  
 _If I can feel that, maybe I ought to stay and fight—_  
  
Another spell landed, and Harry let out a yowl as his knee made a cracking sound. He didn’t know if something was actually broken or just bruised or sprained, and he wasn’t about to stay to find out. The pain was too great, and he was at too much of a disadvantage. He seized and turned the ring.  
  
He heard the howls of his enemies, one wordless and one promising him destruction for having hurt “Jackie,” and then the Portkey took him away. And he landed hard enough on the floor beyond, in the room Draco had told him of, that he gave a single cry as his knee jounced, and then fainted from the pain.  
  
*  
  
 _Fuck—broken wards—I hope they don’t burn the new books—I have to figure out how they got in—_  
  
“Hush, Harry. It’s all right now.”  
  
Harry rolled to the side and opened his eyes. Then he hissed as that jounced his knee, and he reached down to explore the cool poultice draped over it. The pain leached as he lay there, and he sighed again and dropped his head back on the pillow.  
  
“Draco?” he explained, even as he snorted in exasperation at himself. The pale face bending over him could hardly be anything else.  
  
“Yes.” Draco curled his fingers into the bedsheet, but his other hand, as he reached out and caressed Harry’s forehead, was calm. “Do you know who hurt you?”  
  
“Three people, one named Jackie,” Harry answered, and forced his mind to travel back into the blur of violence and pain. “I think they might have had the Risen Cobra symbol on their robes. They surprised me in my kitchen, though. I’m not sure.”  
  
“They got through your  _wards_.” Draco said it in an appalled way, not as a question, and Harry thought he might rip the sheet he was clutching. That would probably upset him. Harry touched his hand, once.  
  
“Yes,” he said. “I don’t know how. That’s definitely the first thing I’m going to find out as soon as I’m back on my feet.”  
  
“I’ll send an elf to your house,” said Draco, and gestured with one hand. When an elf appeared, he said, “What do you want Rizzi to fetch, Harry?”  
  
“It’s easier if I go with him and show him—”  
  
Draco leaned over the bed until Harry couldn’t see the elf at all, which Harry thought was a  _bit_ of an overreaction. It wasn’t as though Rizzi was the one who had hurt him. “No,” Draco whispered. “You’re going to stay here, flat on your back, until we can get some  _clue_ to what’s happened.”  
  
Harry considered that. His knee did still hurt, and his shoulder. And perhaps it would be stupid to upset Draco further.  
  
“All right,” he said. “Then one set of clothes out of the cupboard beside my bed, Rizzi, and the books on pure-blood customs in the library.”  
  
Rizzi bowed and vanished. Harry glanced at Draco, about to say something, but Draco was looking at the doorway.  
  
“Mr. Potter, are you hurt?” Scorpius was standing there, and he stepped inside, hesitating. Harry supposed he might have visited before and Draco had sent him away while Harry was still sleeping.  
  
“A little,” said Harry, smiling at him. “It’ll pass.”  
  
“You being hurt is bad,” said Scorpius. “Who hurt you?”  
  
“We don’t know yet,” said Harry. “We’re working on finding out.”  
  
“Well,  _catch_ them,” said Scorpius, as if it was the simplest thing in the world. “I’m going to get Golden. He can keep you company.” He went out of the room with as determined a stride as a child his age was probably capable of.   
  
Harry laughed and looked up at Draco. “He makes it sound so simple.”  
  
“Well, some things are,” said Draco. “Such as you staying off your feet and in my care until we figure out what happened.”  
  
His hand was caressing Harry’s in a steady, soft motion that he didn’t seem to realize he was still using. Harry took his hand in return, and shook his head a little. In a way, Draco didn’t need to be that concerned. It could have been a lot worse, and he was the one who had given Harry the means of escape.  
  
In another way, that he  _was_ so concerned filled both Harry’s head and belly with a warm, pleasant haze.


	17. Such a World of Walls

“Well, but I have to see my friends.”  
  
“You can see them.” Draco’s smile was light and flexible, and when he reached out and played with one of Harry’s hands, Harry might have thought the same thing about his fingers. But he could see Draco’s other hand, even though it was down by his side, from where he lay in the bed. It was curled into a claw that didn’t look as though it had ever heard of flexibility. “They just have to come here.”  
  
“They don’t want to,” Harry pointed out, with what he thought was reason. “Hermione was tortured here.”  
  
“She doesn’t have to go into that part of the house. We’re far away from that part of the house.”  
  
“We are?” Harry blinked. It was true that he had so far only been down the stairs to a single dining room, since he had a bathroom right in his chambers, and it had felt wonderful to luxuriate in a big bed and eat meals with Draco and play with Scorpius and not do anything else. But he had assumed they were close to the main part, with the room where Bellatrix had tortured Hermione. “Where are we?”  
  
“In the wing with the room that the Portkey brought you to.”  
  
“I thought—wasn’t that kind of out of the way?”  
  
“It’s strictly warded.” Draco gave him an even glance, with a blush high on his cheekbones that Harry didn’t understand for a moment, until Draco finally blurted out. “I’m not taking any chances that someone else could get at you.”  
  
“It’s okay,” said Harry, reaching out and taking Draco’s hand. “Rizzi didn’t find anyone there when he went to get the clothes, remember? They probably left my house as soon as they realized I was gone and I wasn’t coming back.” Draco only went on staring, and Harry added, “It wasn’t like they came there to rob me. They just wanted to kill me.”  
  
“ _Just_ ,” Draco said, in such a tone of long-suffering that Harry had to grin.  
  
“I know,” said Harry. “How they got through the wards concerns me, and I need to find that out. But I also need to see my friends.” He’d had owls from them, but Draco refused to let him out of the house so far, and they didn’t want to firecall him or come over to the Manor—which Harry understood too well to force them into doing. “So I need to go home. Then I can look at the wards and talk to my friends at the same time.”  
  
“What happens if more Risen Cobras show up?” Draco’s stare was uncompromising.  
  
“I have this handy Portkey,” Harry said, gesturing to his ring.  
  
From his even more fixed stare, Draco didn’t think that was funny. Harry was a little disappointed.  _He’d_ thought it was hilarious.   
  
“You dislocated your kneecap,” Draco said quietly. “You have a broken bone in your shoulder blade.” His hand rose and touched the top of Harry’s shoulder as though he thought he would break it again by pressing.  
  
“ _Had_ ,” Harry corrected. Potions had taken care of the damage to his shoulder the first night. The kneecap was a more delicate issue, and it would still be a few days before the regimen of potions the Healers had given him would have their full effect, but it wasn’t like he couldn’t walk. He just had to be careful.  
  
“And the damage to your hands from the numbing curse was extensive,” Draco continued, as if he hadn’t heard him. He probably hadn’t, Harry thought, torn between fondness and exasperation. There were few people like Draco for focusing. “The Healers said that you probably shouldn’t try to hold your wand for a week.”  
  
Harry scowled. Apparently the curse was a new one the Healers hadn’t run into before, but they could analyze its purpose and effect even if not all the smaller spells that had gone into making it up. The curse was specifically supposed to flare up and cause continuing damage if Harry handled a wand. He could play with toys with Scorpius and use a spoon just fine, but anything magical—even Floo powder, the latest Healer had said—was a problem.  
  
“They said it would wear off in a week,” said Harry. “Probably. But I can’t go around being afraid for the rest of my life.”  
  
“No, you can’t.” Draco’s scowl and eyelids were both heavy. “I’m not asking you to do that. What I  _hope_ you’ll do is yield to good sense and not handle your wand for the next week.”  
  
Harry looked away. Draco touched his shoulder, lightly again, but it was enough to turn him back.   
  
“Why are you so resistant to accepting help?” Draco whispered. “Just because Healers didn’t work out for your friends is no reason to think they won’t work out for you.”  
  
Harry stirred restlessly. “It’s not—it’s not that I think I’m too good to accept help.”  
  
“I didn’t say anything about too good—”  
  
“And I  _did_ let the Healers help me. I take all my potions every day, like a good boy, don’t I?” Harry gestured to the line of vials on the table beside his bed. In truth, he thought it was a little excessive. He’d suffered wounds before that were as extensive, and even curses, and no one had put him to bed and babied him and fed him potions every few hours.  
  
 _It felt nice when Draco did that._  
  
But that wasn’t the point. The point was that no one had  _done_ it, and Harry had still got up and handled himself and any duels that followed just fine.  
  
“You can go home,” said Draco. “Let me take you. You can firecall your friends from there. Let me put the Floo powder in for you, that’s all. I’ll stay out of the way so they don’t have to look at me while you speak to them.”  
  
Harry turned around in alarm. Draco’s voice had a curdled bitterness that made Harry reach out and take his hand again. “They can’t help it. The place is worst for Hermione—she would never come here for any reason—but the sight of you would also…”  
  
“I know, I know, I know, I  _know_ ,” Draco said, and flung up a hand. “Don’t think I haven’t spent the last few days struggling with myself and telling myself that it’s not their fault. But it’s still—annoying.”  
  
Harry relaxed with a cautious smile. “It is that.”  
  
“And now I’ve distressed you.” Draco spent a long moment looking him in the face, as if he wanted to see exactly how much distress he’d caused. “I’m sorry.”  
  
Harry sighed and stared at his hands. He struggled for a second with what to say, then gave up and decided that he might as well just say it.  
  
“I want my friends to get better,” he told his hands. “I want them to welcome you and for you to all get along.”  
  
Draco found his hand and held it. Harry suspected it was so that he wouldn’t be looking at his hands alone.  
  
“But I know that can’t happen,” Harry continued, and let his gaze lead up the line of Draco’s arm to his face. “I wish for it, but I have to put up with the reality that actually exists, not waste it longing for my dreams.”  
  
Draco was quiet for a moment, and then gave him a look that was not quite a smile. “Well. Part of the reality is that I’m going to handle the magical aspects of your travel for today. Think of me as a house-elf if it makes you feel better.”  
  
“I think you’re a bit—tall.”  
  
Draco burst out laughing. Harry was glad to be able to make him laugh, and touched his hand to add, “I appreciate it.”  
  
“I know you do.” Serious again in a moment, Draco studied him. “I just wish that you would accept more.”  
  
Not knowing what to say, Harry gave him a reserved smile, and turned to get dressed.  
  
He did have to turn and add over his shoulder, a second later, “I don’t think house-elves need to  _watch_  people get dressed, either.”  
  
“That’s nice,” said Draco. “If I see any, I’ll tell them.”  
  
Harry hesitated, then decided that it was probably useless to argue, anyway, and turned back calmly to pulling his shirt over his head.  
  
*  
  
“I’ve never heard of a curse that makes your hands numb for a week afterwards.” Hermione was looking through a book that she had gone to retrieve from Harry’s library immediately after he had described what the curse did. She looked back up with a frown. “Do you think the Healers could be wrong?”  
  
“Maybe not,” said Ron. “That you’ve never heard of it is part of the point, remember? The Risen Cobras could have invented it.” He leaned forwards and poured more tea into the cup that sat on Harry’s part of the table. Harry nodded his thanks, although he thought part of the reason Ron was doing that was the ability to keep an eye focused down the corridor in case Draco showed any signs of returning.  
  
“Right, but the Risen Cobras were never that dangerous before.” Hermione combed hair out of her eyes with a frown.  
  
“They could never break my wards before, either.” Harry folded his hand under his chin. He didn’t like the implications. He didn’t like the holes in his wards. He was pretty tired of the Risen Cobras, too, while he was at it.  
  
“They probably found someone who taught them, someone who could do it.” Ron sucked sugar from his fingers, thoughtfully. He and Hermione had found a bakery run by a Muggleborn who apparently used magic for her biscuits and cakes and nothing else, since she lived in the center of Muggle London. Harry had to admit that the biscuits would have tempted him ordinarily, but he’d been spoiled by the food in Malfoy Manor, and he wasn’t hungry. “Maybe you could track that person down by casting that spell, you know, the tracking one you told me about.”  
  
Harry stirred a little, uneasily, especially when he saw Hermione sitting up in her chair. “What spell is that?” She looked back and forth between Ron and Harry with her eyes bright. “I never heard you mention it.”  
  
Ron flinched guiltily a moment later, but the damage was done. Harry glared at him for a second just to let him know that he was displeased with Ron in general, too, and then turned reluctantly back to face Hermione. “It’s a means I found of tracking someone’s magical signature and using that to run them down.”  
  
“The Aurors knew it?”   
  
“No, um,” said Harry. He didn’t want to reveal this mostly because Hermione would angry he’d never told her before, but he had to now. “I kind of created it.”  
  
Hermione’s mouth tumbled open a little. Then she said, “That kind of spell creation is incredibly dangerous.”  
  
“I know,” Harry said, and hid his face in his hands, peeking out at her from between his fingers. He  _did_ know it. Usually, new spells were perfected by teams of wizards who worked together, ensuring that the strain of a new incantation and wand movements didn’t fall too much on anyone’s unique magical core. “I’m sorry. I did it out of sheer need, without knowing what I was doing, and then it existed.”  
  
“And you could use it now,” said Ron, who apparently really couldn’t take a hint.  
  
Harry knew where that kind of obstinacy came from, and he couldn’t blame Ron. He was only doing his best to ensure that Hermione knew something he thought she should know, that Harry was safe, and that their little group was still all friends. People who thought that Harry was the only one who made sacrifices for his friends were wrong, although Harry knew he would have found that hard to explain to, say, Draco in the right words.  
  
“I could,” Harry admitted. “Even though it’s dangerous and I don’t know yet who I’m trying to track down.”  
  
“You said that one of them spoke the name Jackie. That could be a start.”  
  
“That name might be the Risen Cobra I defeated in Diagon Alley. I’d have to make sure.”  
  
“I can tell you that much,” said Ron, with a triumphant little shake of his head. “We don’t know all of his name yet, but we can tell that that one is related to the Highhands. You know, that little pure-blood family whose manor we visited the last month you were in the Aurors?”  
  
Harry hissed. Yes, he knew the Highhands. They were pure-bloods so haughty that even other pure-bloods looked askance at them, and for good reason. They thought not only shouldn’t they marry Muggleborns, they should only marry within their own family. At least the Blacks had only married cousins, not their brothers and sisters.  
  
“All right,” he said. “The name Jackie and the magical signature behind the spells would at least take me to the Cobras who broke into my house. Not that they would necessarily lead me to the person who taught them to break through the wards.”  
  
“It’s still dangerous?” Hermione reached over the table and touched his hand with a quick, darting motion. “If it’s too dangerous, then I don’t think you should do it.”  
  
“Lots of different things I could do are dangerous,” said Harry, with a smile for her so she wouldn’t take the insult as personal. “That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t do them. And it’s also true that I would like to find the people who broke through my wards and have them taken into Auror custody before something like this happens again.”  
  
“Harry.”  
  
The whisper from the corridor almost had Harry reaching for his wand before he remembered who else was here. He sighed and glanced over his shoulder. Right. Draco was obeying the letter of the law in staying out of his friends’ sight, but no wonder he wanted to talk to Harry about this.  
  
 _It is kind of silly that we can’t all just be in the same room together._  
  
But Harry had done far sillier things himself, like going after a suspected mass murderer and fighting a basilisk with a sword. He stood up. “I’ll be right back,” he told Ron and Hermione, who were both sitting as rigidly as though Harry’s comfortable chairs had suddenly turned into masses of splinters.  
  
Harry stepped around the corner, and straight into a pair of waiting arms. Draco felt him all over as though wanting to make sure that Harry had taken no wounds during that small conversation with Ron and Hermione. Harry rolled his eyes at everything and nothing. He understood the impulse behind what Draco was doing, but his friends would misunderstand it.  
  
 _Just like Draco misunderstands them._  
  
It was getting tiring to be caught in the middle, but Harry had chosen this. He could have refused to honor Draco’s pure-blood customs at any point in the process of them becoming friends. He drew a little back and murmured, “What? Well?”  
  
“This spell is dangerous,” said Draco. “I’m glad that I wasn’t there during the creation, because that would have been worse. But you’re not going to perform it alone.”  
  
Harry blinked. “The actual discovery of the names is going to be the dangerous part. I’ll take off running, and I might find myself in the home where the Risen Cobras live, or in their headquarters, if they have one. That doesn’t mean I need someone with me when I perform the actual wand movements.”  
  
“Too bad. You’re going to have one.” Draco put a hand on his shoulder. “They fear your magic. They must, or they wouldn’t have bothered with the curse that numbed your hands. And although I think the Healers are right about the amount of time it’s going to take to wear off, there’s no telling what side-effects it might have. The Cobras might have come up with that curse specifically to make sure that you would have trouble using magic against them. Someone needs to be with you, to watch you.”  
  
“Well, I wasn’t going to do the spell for a week anyway, until it’s safe to use my wand again,” Harry muttered, and leaned for a second against Draco. Draco put a hand on his shoulder blade. Harry sighed. It was nice, he had to admit that, being with someone who wanted to fight for his safety. Harry just had to make sure that it didn’t go too far.  
  
“I’ll be with you.”  
  
“But Ron and Hermione might want to be with me.”  
  
“If I can’t put aside the past to be with you during that time, I shouldn’t even be here now.” Draco buried his face in Harry’s neck. “And the same is true of them.”  
  
Harry opened his mouth to say it was more complicated than that, that it had to do with traumas and nightmares and the scars of wounds years part.  
  
And then he wrapped an arm around Draco’s waist. He’d felt Draco trembling with what he thought was less fear than fear of being sent away. He couldn’t resist that, any more than he could resist Ron and Hermione’s entreaties not to see Draco.   
  
He wanted to do everything he could for his friends. He would manage, somehow. He had to.  
  
“All right,” he whispered, and had his reward in the brilliant smile that Draco didn’t bother looking up to give him. He must know that Harry could feel it against his skin.


	18. Overprotectiveness

“Where are you going, Mr. Potter?”  
  
Harry winced a little, but he had to turn around and smile at Scorpius. He’d been trying to sneak gently out of his bedroom. He knew Draco had gone to take a nap, wearied by the way that he’d been keeping watch over Harry and reinforcing his wards for the past few days.  
  
But Scorpius had come around the corner, and he stood behind Harry with a stuffed owl in his arms, his latest toy, eyes wide with something that could be betrayal or amazement.  
  
Harry crouched down in front of him. “I’m trying to help your Dad,” he explained, because he thought that was the best way to get through to Scorpius. “You know he’s sleeping because he’s so tired?”  
  
“That’s what Rizzi said.” Scorpius looked around as though Rizzi was going to pop up beside him and explain further, but focused on Harry again when no house-elf appeared. “But he said that Daddy would be fine soon.”  
  
“Oh, he will be,” Harry reassured Scorpius hastily. The last thing he wanted was for Scorpius to be worried about Draco, genuinely worried. He was such a precocious kid it would probably be devastating, and then they would have him in Draco’s bedroom offering to fetch and carry things. “But he needs some time to rest.”  
  
Scorpius accepted that without question, and then focused in on the thing that Harry had hoped he wouldn’t. “Where are  _you_  going, Mr. Potter?”  
  
“I’m going to firecall St. Mungo’s,” said Harry. It was true.  
  
But Scorpius gave him the kind of sharp, accusing glare that would probably stand him in good stead when he went to Hogwarts and was Sorted into Slytherin. “Daddy said you shouldn’t. He said your hands were hurt, and you shouldn’t.”  
  
Harry ran said hand through his hair. Not only a kid who wanted to take care of his father, but one who wanted to take care of Harry, too.  
  
 _How did I get so lucky?_  
  
Harry shook the thought away. Yes, of course he was lucky to have Draco and Scorpius in his life, but at the moment, Scorpius was being a pain.  
  
“I know, but I think I’m better, now,” he said, and gave Scorpius a soothing smile that had never failed to work when he used it on children in George’s shop. They would accept that their particular toy didn’t work anymore, or was too old for them, and they should buy something else.  
  
Scorpius was precocious in more than one way, it seemed. “But Daddy said that you shouldn’t use magic for a week. Your  _hands._ They could crack and fall off.”  
  
Harry reached out before he thought about it and put a hand on Scorpius’s head. “That’s not true,” he said, and made his voice softer when Scorpius peered at him. “Have you been going around worrying about that? It’s really  _not_ true. I promise.”  
  
Scorpius looked utterly unconvinced. “But you could make them fall off if you used magic.”  
  
“No,” said Harry. “Something bad would happen, but it’s not that.”  
  
“How do you know?”  
  
Faced with the fact that he didn’t really know what the effects of the curse would be—the Healers at St. Mungo’s hadn’t specified, much—Harry took refuge in the one certainty he did have. “Your Daddy and my friends are sort of fighting,” he explained carefully. “They both want to help me with my hands, but they don’t want to do it at the same time. So I want to get my hands and my magic back so they don’t have to fight.”  
  
Scorpius looked so puzzled that Harry wasn’t surprised by the next question that emerged. “But you can just ask them not to fight.”  
  
“It’s not that simple,” said Harry. “But, look, it’s okay. I promise I won’t do anything that makes my hands fall off.”  
  
Scorpius stood looking at him for another second. Harry wasn’t sure whether he would listen to reason or go and try to wake Draco up. He tried a reassuring smile, which only made Scorpius look more skeptical.  
  
A house-elf appeared, bowing to everybody and scraping its ears against the floor, before either of them could say anything else. “Master Harry Potter and Master Scorpius Malfoy are to be coming to Master Draco’s room!”  
  
Scorpius perked up, and suddenly he looked like a kid again, not like an obstacle. “Daddy’s awake!” he shouted, and tore down the corridor.  
  
Harry grimaced. The house-elf stood there and stared at him, wringing its hands together and making its skin squeak and rasp, and he knew that it wouldn’t leave him alone. “All right,” he said. “I’m coming.”  
  
“Come  _on_ , Mr. Potter!” Scorpius shouted from in front of him.  
  
Harry concealed a rueful chuckle as he followed him. It seemed that Draco and Scorpius kept intervening just when he was going to do something else, go somewhere, or make up some sort of plans. Kind of the way they had sent his life crazily off course in the last few weeks.  
  
But he was grateful for them, all the same. For the complications and the gifts they brought to his life alike.  
  
He stepped behind Scorpius into Draco’s bedroom, and found Draco sitting up against his pillows, smiling as he listened to Scorpius’s talk. Harry shut the door quietly behind him, glad that Scorpius was just telling Draco about a game that Teddy had probably helped him invent.  
  
Then Scorpius turned and gestured at him, and Harry braced himself, barely in time, as Scorpius said, “And Mr. Potter was going to use magic, and I made him stop! I saved his hands, Daddy! I stopped them from falling off!”  
  
Harry winced as he met Draco’s eyes, which were wide and arrested. Then Draco, without taking his gaze off Harry, tucked an arm around Scorpius and pulled him into bed with him.   
  
“Why don’t you go,” Draco whispered to Scorpius, “and recite  _all_ the rules of your game to Rizzi? Then Rizzi can come back here and tell me about them, and then I’ll understand what you’re talking about. I can’t follow it right now.”  
  
“You  _should_ be able to, Daddy,” said Scorpius, in a gently condescending way.  
  
Draco rubbed his shoulder. “I know, but my brain’s fuzzy from taking a nap right now. You know the way that you wake up from a nap and you can’t think right?”  
  
“That happens to babies. I’m not a baby.”  
  
“Well, maybe I am,” said Draco, grandly enough that Scorpius giggled again. “Go and do as I tell you, Scorpius, and then come back here and have Rizzi tell me all the rules.” Harry supposed that was a substitute for writing, which Scorpius wouldn’t be able to do with any facility yet.  
  
Scorpius giggled one more time, kissed his father on the cheek, slipped out of Draco’s bed, clapped Harry companionably on the hip, and then darted out the door. Draco drew his wand and quietly slid it shut the rest of the way. He didn’t let Harry escape from his gaze the entire time.  
  
“It’s not what you think it is,” said Harry.  
  
“That you deliberately tried to ruin your hands? No, I didn’t think it was.” Draco settled back against the pillow again, but still didn’t look away. “Scorpius has a vivid imagination, and not as much understanding of magic as he will in a few years. He also doesn’t understand the character of someone who will sacrifice so much of himself so readily to save other people a few moments’ inconvenience. Mind you,” he added, turning his head to the side and making his voice a breathy little whisper so that Harry was an inch away from writhing in discomfort, “he’s like his father in that.”  
  
“I just—I just didn’t want this to go on,” Harry said, and waved his hands before Draco could open his mouth. “Not being able to use magic. Not having my friends in the same room. Not being able to work with you  _and_ them. This is the only way I could think of to solve the problem, to contact the Healers at St. Mungo’s and ask them if they were sure about the curse on my hands lasting that long and if they couldn’t do something that would take effect before then.”  
  
Draco thought about that, so long and carefully that Harry could feel sharp nervousness bubbling up in him. He refused to let it affect his facial expression, though. Draco would just have to deal with his blank look.  
  
“Nothing in there,” Draco said, saying the words slowly as though they were in an unfamiliar language, “prohibits me from being the one to call St. Mungo’s for you, so you don’t have to risk your hands.”  
  
Harry winced and looked away.  
  
“Harry. I think I deserve more response than that.”  
  
He did, and Harry sighed and gave it. “I just—I don’t want  _anyone_ to suffer. I knew it would be difficult having you as a—an exclusive friend and having my friends at the same time, when they’re so hurt, but I didn’t anticipate something like this happening. I don’t want you to do more than you have already. You’ve done so much, and I feel like I’ve cost you so much, and I wanted to solve it on my own.”  
  
“The way you’ve solved so many problems?”  
  
Harry did look at Draco again, because he wasn’t sure what he meant by that. “I haven’t been able to solve Ron and Hermione’s problems, if that’s what you mean. And I don’t always have someone attack me in my own home and have to use a Portkey to escape, but I’ve been guarding myself since the war. For a long time.”  
  
Draco only nodded, his eyes so gentle that Harry knew the next words were going to be especially devastating. “But you would rather do this on your own, despite the prospect of ruining your magic or your hands forever, than cause me one more moment of inconvenience or grief.”  
  
“When you put it like  _that_ , of course it sounds bad.”  
  
“Harry.”  
  
Draco had conjured a chair behind him; Harry sank into it and put his hands in his hair. “Yeah,” he muttered, not looking at Draco. “When you put it like that, I reckon that’s what I was doing.”  
  
“You don’t need to,” Draco said, calm, gracious. “I made that Portkey for you and gave you the ring and invited you into my house of my own free will. You don’t need to pay me back.”  
  
“Except for when the pure-blood customs say I do, right?” Harry muttered.  
  
He hadn’t really meant for Draco to hear that part, but Draco stiffened proudly, and it looked as though his neck suddenly had ten extra cords. “You’re welcome to leave at any time and cease even  _trying_ to pay me back,” he said.  
  
“I didn’t,” Harry told his hands on his knees. He knew the way it came across, though, and sagged back in the chair, shaking his head. “I reckon I fucked up. I’m so used to either solving problems right away, the way I did with that Risen Cobra in Diagon Alley, or only doing things that make a little bit of difference. And then I walked into one where I could make some difference if I waited, and where someone was trying to help me, and I fucked it up.”  
  
Draco blinked once, twice. “Does that mean that you’re willing to wait until I can firecall St. Mungo’s for you?”  
  
“Yes,” Harry said, and sighed. It seemed so straightforward now. The way it had seemed straightforward a few years ago when Hermione had nightmares so bad that she needed an especially strong dose of Dreamless Sleep Potion and Harry thought he had to be the one to go and collect the dangerous ingredients from among the Hebridean Black dragons. Only after he had gone and come back did Hermione tell him that he could have requested some of those from the Dragon-Keepers. “I’m sorry. Too long being on my own, and then facing different kinds of problems, the way I had before.”  
  
Draco still had an odd expression on his face. Then it changed into a smug one. Harry suspected what he would say even before he did. “You know, according to custom, since you scared me like that, you have to do something for me now.”  
  
“What’s that? Bow down to you three times?” Harry slid to one knee on the carpet and fluttered his eyelashes at him. “O Great and Powerful Leader, forgive me for having disobeyed your orders.”  
  
“You have no idea how good you look on your knees,” murmured Draco.  
  
Harry felt a flush of heat travel up his body. It was surprising, and pleasant, and surprisingly pleasant. But he could only smile slightly and keep his eyes on Draco, who cleared his throat and hurried on. “No. And it’s not a gift this time, either. You have to show that you take this companionship between us seriously.”  
  
“How?”   
  
“That’s up to you.” Draco lay back on his pillows and lifted a hand at Harry in the kind of languid wave a king would use to dismiss a servant. “But you’re the one who has to come up with it, and it has to be in the next twenty-four hours.”  
  
“And in the meantime, you’ll firecall St. Mungo’s for me?”  
  
“I don’t know that that’s an equal exchange,” Draco drawled, but he smiled. “Of course I will.” Harry thought he might even have said something else, but the door opened then, and Scorpius came bouncing in, dragging Rizzi along behind him. The house-elf had his head down and his eyes shut tight. Harry wondered what he had thought he was interrupting.  
  
“Rizzi can tell you all about the rules of the game that we made up,” said Scorpius, which made Harry smile a little. He’d  _known_ that Teddy had to be one of the inspirations behind Scorpius’s game—not that Scorpius wasn’t creative, but he was just too young to come up with everything. “He’ll recite them all in order.” He hopped up into Draco’s bed again and beamed at Harry. “You’re going to stay and listen to them, Mr. Potter?”  
  
“Yes,” said Harry, not even having to glance at Draco’s face to know that he would be welcome. And it was the least he could do, to make sure that Scorpius knew he was okay and not sneaking off to do damage to himself. “I’d love to hear it.” He dragged the chair around so he was sitting with his back to the bed, and they could all watch Rizzi as he stood in the center of the room and nervously cleared his throat.  
  
A second later, Harry felt the touch of an arm on his shoulders. He would have started, but he knew what it was: Draco touching him, reaching out, making sure he was included.  
  
Harry leaned back, and gave himself up to the enjoyment of both Rizzi’s recitation of an enormously complex game and the fact that there was someone here who wanted to include him—to include him in  _everything_.


	19. Such a Sacred Companionship

Draco walked down the stairs slowly, as if he expected Harry to get up from the floor. But Harry continued kneeling where he was, right in the middle of the great hall at the bottom of the stairs, his hands lifted up before him like he was pleading for his life.  
  
He had wanted to put a pious expression on his face, too, but there were some things that wouldn’t happen no matter how much he wanted them to.   
  
“What is this?” Draco had a snap to his voice that Harry hadn’t reckoned on, but he knew where it came from. Draco had challenged him to prove that Harry actually  _did_ hold their companionship dear, and to do it in a manner that would follow pure-blood custom. This probably looked as if Harry was mocking the custom instead.  
  
Harry closed his eyes and bowed his head, and then concentrated on carefully parting his fingers. He couldn’t use magic, still, or this would have been much easier.   
  
His fingers twitched the sheet of parchment upright, and he heard Draco make a little hiss, probably suspecting him of using his magic after all for a moment. Harry opened his eyes again and grinned. Draco had recoiled and had his hand on his wand. From the look of things, he was watching Harry’s palms and fingers for some signs of cracking and falling to dust.  
  
Harry knew his smile was tender, whether Draco was looking at it or not. He had thought that Draco was exaggerating the story he’d told Scorpius, or more likely, that Scorpius just didn’t understand the real danger. Stories like the Risen Cobras weren’t things you told a child.  
  
But now he knew that Draco had believed it. He had controlled his panic remarkably well when Harry had come into the bedroom and he’d heard where Harry had been going. He could still let Harry have some freedom from the overwhelming crush of his need, then.  
  
There were reasons that Harry could so easily come to love him.  
  
“Aren’t you going to take a look at the parchment?” Harry finally murmured, when Draco just stood there and stared at him.  
  
Draco swallowed and shook his head, muttering something about fears and foolishness that Harry didn’t choose to listen to. Then he snatched the piece of parchment and unfolded it.  
  
Harry knew exactly what he’d written there, which was the reason he was able to mouth the words along with Draco’s silent reading of them, but he would still have liked to read them over Draco’s shoulder, to share the experience, at the same time.  
  
 _Anything you want to ask for is yours._  
  
Draco stood there for so long that Harry was starting to become concerned. Maybe Draco didn’t understand. Maybe he thought that Harry was offering him sex or something, and he wasn’t ready for that. Maybe he had gone temporarily blind, and he really couldn’t absorb the words.  
  
Then he lowered the parchment and stared at Harry as if drawing in the important details about him with his eyes. Harry remained patiently on his knees, even though they were starting to ache. He wasn’t even thirty yet, they shouldn’t, but he got a reminder every week or sort that he also wasn’t sixteen anymore.  
  
“You know what I could ask for?” Draco whispered.  
  
“Right, but you won’t,” Harry said, and judged the time right to rise to his feet. He reached out and laid his hand on top of Draco’s wrist, turning it slowly back and forth, admiring the delicate bone. “That’s the reason I chose to give the power of asking to you. Because I know you won’t abuse that power.”  
  
Draco was shaking. Harry frowned. He wondered if he had accidentally interfered with another pure-blood custom or something like that, and that was the reason Draco hadn’t wanted to accept this.  
  
Then Draco leaned forwards and whispered, “Do you have any idea how long it’s been since someone  _trusted_ me with something like that?”  
  
“There’s Scorpius,” Harry began, unsure, but he knew what Draco meant. Scorpius gave that trust, but he didn’t give it consciously. It was the sort of thing that a lot of children with parents did.  
  
“No one,” Draco continued. “I’m not sure that even my mother did.” He leaned his head on Harry’s shoulder and fought for breath. Harry reached up and patted his back awkwardly. He had meant this to make Draco happy. At the moment, he didn’t know if it did.  
  
Draco finally stepped back and gave Harry a smile that was distinctly teary. “ _Thank you_.”  
  
That at least eased Harry’s fears about whether Draco liked his promise. He could smile back now, and tease a little. “I’m glad that you’re not rendered permanently speechless. Because I’d like you to ask me for something, you know.”  
  
“I will,” Draco said, and there was a little gasp at the end of the words that no longer worried Harry now that he understood it. “I just have to think of what I want.” He hesitated, then added, “Well, something that I want and that doesn’t conflict with something else that I might want to ask for later instead.”  
  
Harry decided that he didn’t need to ask what that meant; the important thing was that Draco had accepted his gift, and liked it, and he could do whatever he needed to in the meantime. He hooked his arm through Draco’s, and they walked into the dining room, where the house-elves would have breakfast waiting, the perfect temperature, the way that Harry’s food never was if his concentration wavered for even a moment.  
  
There  _were_ some nice things about living in Malfoy Manor.  
  
*  
  
“Thanks for saying I could come visit again,” Teddy told Harry, bouncing out of the fireplace and shaking the soot from his robes all over the floor. Before Harry could say anything, a house-elf appeared and dusted it up, then vanished again. Harry shook his head. Probably a good thing that Andromeda didn’t have house-elves, or Teddy would get as spoiled as Dudley.  
  
“I think that was more up to your grandmother and Draco,” Harry replied. He had thought about calling Draco by his last name in front of Teddy, just to encourage respect, but he reckoned that Draco would earn respect from Teddy anyway, just by how he acted.  
  
Teddy gave him one of those oh-spare-me-the-exasperation looks that he liked to use around Harry. “Really? You think so? When you’ve been living here almost a week?”  
  
“That doesn’t make me the owner of the house or anything,” Harry protested, following Teddy out of the receiving room—as Draco insisted on calling it—and down towards the gardens, where Scorpius was waiting for them.  
  
“No, but it makes you at home here,” Teddy said, and ran away before Harry could correct him, yelling, “Scorpius! You have it coming, little cousin!”  
  
Harry stood there wondering for a moment, then shrugged. Honestly, he would rather hear why Teddy was saying that to Scorpius than he would the reasons why Teddy thought he was so at home here.  
  
*  
  
Scorpius’s head hit the table for the third time. He promptly sat up and turned to Draco with an expression that was cute and pompous at the same time. “I’m  _not_ tired,” he said.  
  
“Oh, of course not,” said Draco, and turned a page in the  _Evening Prophet._ Harry had wondered why he had a subscription when Draco despised the  _Daily Prophet,_ but Draco had said the news was superior in the evening edition. “You have a bruise on your forehead from the number of times that you’ve almost gone to sleep, and you have an indentation on your hand from how long you’ve been holding the soup spoon, but you’re not tired.”  
  
He didn’t appear to notice when Scorpius let go of the soup spoon and stared at his hand. Harry grinned a little and whispered, “It just means you have a dent in your hand.”  
  
Draco’s shoulders gave a mild shake. Harry didn’t know if he was laughing at Harry for explaining or at himself for forgetting that Scorpius probably wouldn’t know a word like that.  
  
“Oh.” Scorpius blinked for a bit, and then jumped to his feet and shook himself like a dog shaking off water. “I’m not tired.”  
  
“I didn’t say you were,” Draco remarked again. “I wish I could pretend to be an eagle all day. It looked fun.”  
  
“You could,” said Scorpius, and looked at his father critically, as if he was waiting for wards or barriers to rise around him. “No one is stopping you. No one  _ever_ stops adults from doing what they want to do.”  
  
“You stopped me the other day,” Harry said, and bit back his own chuckle when Scorpius glanced at him in confusion. He was so sleepy that he had forgotten what Harry could possibly mean. “When I was going to go to the Floo and possibly make my hands fall off?” He saw Draco’s shoulders tense again, and felt a little sorry. He hadn’t meant to upset Draco with the reminder.  
  
“Right,” said Scorpius. “But Daddy was really the one who stopped you.” He sighed and glanced at the stairs. “I’m not tired.”  
  
“Of course not,” Draco agreed, and he actually sounded serious this time.   
  
“But could I maybe go to bed? Not to sleep,” Scorpius added quickly. “Teddy said that it’s my turn to invent some of the rules in the game next time. I have to think about them.”  
  
“Of course you should,” said Draco, and leaned over the paper so that he could drop a kiss on Scorpius’s head. “I expect to hear all about them in the morning, mind.”  
  
Scorpius brightened and trotted away with a yawn and a wave of his hand. Draco looked after him with fondness shining in his eyes. Even knowing why it was impossible and that it might be a good thing it was, Harry wished his friends could see Draco right now. They at least would know that he could care for someone.  
  
But then Draco turned around and looked at him, and Harry felt heat creep up from under his collar and cleared his throat a little. He didn’t want to share the tenderness now blazing in Draco’s eyes with anyone else.  
  
“I’ve thought of something to ask you.” Draco’s voice was low and rich and warm.  
  
“Sure,” said Harry. He thought he probably knew what it was going to be, but he could hardly deny that part of him was panting for it. He watched as Draco put out his hand on the table and let it lie there.   
  
Then Draco let it go so long that Harry wasn’t sure what Draco was going to say after all. Did he want Harry to read up on some more pure-blood customs? Stay away from the Floo? Make sure that he didn’t use magic for the few days the Healers said he had before the curse would wear off completely?  
  
“I want you to walk with me,” said Draco, and scrambled to his feet with his face averted.  
  
 _I don’t understand him,_ Harry thought, but he had said anything that Draco wanted would be okay, and this was evidently something Draco wanted, from the way he was hastily opening the outer door. They stepped out into the gardens, where Scorpius and Teddy had spent most of the day playing.  
  
The sun was setting, and the thick black and blue colors making their way down the sky made Harry’s shoulders settle. He sighed. Then he felt a hand on his shoulder, and turned around.  
  
Draco was close to the hedge of white roses that Teddy had turned red with accidental magic in a moment of excitement during the games. Harry actually wasn’t sure whether the excitement had been over the game going right or Scorpius doing something wrong.  
  
His mind was racing, and it was clear and not clear at the same time around him, as though someone was playing a light over his eyes and not giving him time to close them, and then Draco leaned in and kissed him.  
  
Harry didn’t wait for another request. The hot, uncertain breath of desire on his lips was enough. He reached out and grabbed the back of Draco’s neck, then guided him in closer, going slowly but making sure that Draco understood this was something he was more than happy to give him—and participate in.  
  
Draco let out a noisy sob, and then kissed him harder, not with tongue yet, but with so firm a press of lips that Harry had to smile. He pulled Draco in closer, until they were swaying together and he thought there was an excellent chance that they would go into the rosebushes. Draco didn’t seem to care. He kissed Harry long and noisily, hard enough to hurt, hard enough to make Harry’s lips go numb.  
  
Harry didn’t care. There was living warmth, uncertain warmth, under his hands, and Harry had been right. There was no way that Draco was going to abuse his trust.  
  
Draco drew back with his eyes closed, and stood there with them shut, and went on doing that until Harry got worried and waved a hand up and down in front of his face. Draco only shook his head, with a mysterious smile, and then opened his eyes and breathed, “Don’t ruin the moment.”  
  
So Harry didn’t. They stood there like that, in the gardens, holding each other, and the red roses hung behind them on the hedge, and the sun slid into darkness, and Harry knew they were both happy.


	20. Blended Families

“We thought you were never going to leave Malfoy Manor.”  
  
Harry gave Ron a bland smile and shook his head. “I’ll go back if I need to. Draco will probably insist on it, because he thinks his wards are the ones that can protect me the best. But it doesn’t mean that I’m going to stay there for as long again.”  
  
Ron gave a shudder that he seemed to think Harry didn’t see, and changed the subject, wandering over to the edge of Harry’s house and the broken wards. “What about these holes? I know you didn’t want to repair them fully, because they might give you clues that would lead you to these Risen Cobras, but…”  
  
“I think it’s time, yes,” said Harry, and picked up his wand. He was so bloody grateful to be able to use it again. His time in Draco’s care had been wonderful, but he’d missed magic.  
  
 _You should be grateful to Draco that you’re around to use it at all._  
  
Harry refrained from rolling his eyes with an effort. That inner voice sounded like Hermione—Hermione as she used to be, when she had more lectures than nightmares. Yes, he knew he should be, and he had thanked Draco several times. He’d waved goodbye to Scorpius and promised Draco he would take it easy and come right back to the Manor if he saw another threat that he didn’t think he could handle by himself.  
  
That didn’t make it any easier to accept that someone else had to do the simplest things for him, like using the Floo powder. But now the Healers at St. Mungo’s had declared their comfortable belief that the curse was gone, and that meant Harry could at least feel the power flow through his hands again.  
  
“ _Reparo durus_ ,” he murmured, and the magic tingled sharply as it sped through his hand and down the wand, but it didn’t make him burst into flames, as Draco had obviously feared it would. And it didn’t make his hands crack and drop off, either, the fate Scorpius was still convinced he’d saved Harry from.  
  
The wards surged back together with a thunderclap of power that made Ron stagger. Harry grinned at him. “Sorry,” he said, and then spun around in the middle of the street and laughed aloud.  
  
“Merlin, mate.” Ron rubbed his eyes, although Harry thought he had only felt and not seen the magic. “ _Warn_ a bloke next time when you’re going to do that.”  
  
Harry smiled at him. “What did you expect, when I’ve been prevented from casting magic for more than a week?” It really had been more than a week, at least if you included the initial day he had spent in bed at Malfoy Manor before the Healers could confirm that the curse on his hands was unknown. “And you knew I was going to cast that spell.”  
  
Ignoring the way Ron was still grumbling, Harry ran a loving hand down his wand. He had sometimes thought that maybe it would be for the best if he gave up the wizarding world and went back and lived in the Muggle one, where at least there were no Risen Cobras hunting him and he could pass unnoticed. He never had because his friends needed him, but now he knew there was more than one reason not to do it. He could never give up the magic that tore through him, the feeling of dancing on a stream of molten lava.  
  
“Prevented,” Ron said suddenly.  
  
Harry glanced at him curiously. “What? Are you thinking about the curse? I promise, I’ll cast that tracking spell and find out who did this to me.”  
  
“Who prevented you from casting magic?” Ron jabbed a finger at him. “Not us. We barely saw you.”  
  
“The Healers, because of the curse,” Harry said, confused. His friends should have understood this by the time he visited them, if they hadn’t before. “And then Draco, and even Scorpius, who tattled on me when I was going to firecall St. Mungo’s.”  
  
“Oh,” said Ron abruptly, and then looked down at his hands. Harry sighed.  
  
“You were going to say that Draco was the one preventing me,” he said. “Or you felt that way.”  
  
Ron shrugged a little, not looking at him. “Hermione is the one who feels that way. And sometimes I think she’s right, mate.” He lifted his head and turned around, focusing on Harry in an intent, unnerving way. “You’ve gone full force into this Malfoy thing, as if you thought that you owed him something.”  
  
“I don’t feel that way—”  
  
“Isn’t that the reason you stick around us?” Ron asked, with the same intensity. “Because you feel that you owe us something for failing to cure our problems and you want to spend time supporting us instead?”  
  
Harry stared at Ron, feeling as though the ground under his feet had cracked. He hadn’t fallen into the crack yet, but he was going to start falling soon, and it wasn’t going to be pretty.  
  
“ _No_!” His voice trembled. He shook his head and repeated himself more roughly, more strongly. “Merlin, Ron, is that the way you feel? I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to let it get to that point. I stay because I love you lot. And I’m your friend. And I help you because I understand that you don’t want to go to Healers.”  
  
Ron looked away from him. “Maybe we should, though,” he murmured, so softly that Harry didn’t think he would have heard him if he didn’t have his ears stretched for exactly that, because every word that Ron said was important now. Even more important than it had been during the war.  
  
“What? But you know what a disaster that was last time, when the Healers were trying to interview you or just didn’t believe some of what you told them, and that one Healer had that daughter who’d died in the war and spent five minutes yelling at Hermione because she was the one who’d survived—”  
  
“I know,” said Ron, with a down-cutting gesture so abrupt that it shut Harry up all by itself. “But I know something else, mate, and it’s that your strength and your idealism just aren’t going to last forever. And that we were utterly lost last week, when you spent all that time with Malfoy.”  
  
“What does Draco have to do with  _this_?” Harry flexed his hands miserably. “If you felt neglected because I was with him.”  
  
That sentence ended there, because Harry didn’t know what to do. There was some emotion even more powerful than guilt in his stomach and sitting on his shoulders. He had needed that holiday from concerns so much, he had wanted to be with Draco, but it seemed to have cost his friends the way failing them during the war had.  
  
“No,” Ron said. This time it was gentle. Harry still found it hard to look up until Ron moved in front of him and shook his shoulders a little, though. “No, that’s not what I meant. Just that Hermione and I were lost without you. And it shouldn’t be that way. We’re parents. We have a little girl. We have jobs. We have responsibilities. We shouldn’t be depending on you to carry that much weight.”  
  
Harry reached up and caught Ron’s wrists, holding them firmly. The crack in the street was still there, but now it had filled with something richer and deeper than light. He was smiling, and the words that floated off his tongue were the ones he had wanted to speak and hadn’t thought he would for the rest of his life. “I’ve been waiting to hear you say that.”  
  
Ron gave him an embarrassed little smile and looked at the ground. “We depend on you too much. We want to stop.”  
  
Harry shivered in pleasure and relief. He had shoved the thought away as a traitorous one every time it occurred to  _him_ , but now, he was in this new, blessed world, and he could say, “As long as you think that you and Hermione can find the right Mind-Healer.”  
  
“I think it was a mistake to start looking so soon after the war,” Ron said, with a shake of his head. “Of course we were going to get people who were still angry and upset and all the rest of it. But there’s been some time to let their passions cool now, and they don’t focus on us as much as they used to.”  
  
There were still stories about him and Hermione, Harry knew, stories about the war heroes that the press thought hadn’t lived up to the standards they should have. But he let that pass. He was happy enough that his friends seemed to have found their feet again. “All right. If you want some help, though, or you need me to bribe someone, you know you can count on me.”  
  
Ron gave him a sweet, strange smile. “We can, but I don’t want to  _have_ to all the time.”  
  
Harry only nodded. There was a heaviness in his mouth like the heaviness when he had knelt in the middle of Draco’s house with the paper in his hand, and worried about what Draco might or might not do when he saw it.  
  
Then he stirred. He wondered if it was the right moment to tell his friends about the kiss, the moment he and Draco had shared, and the relationship that they might be forming.  
  
But he dismissed the notion. While the mention of Draco and the time that Harry had spent over at his house had led to this moment, it was still not about him. It was about Ron, and Hermione, and maybe George someday, and the way they might be able to expand their lives. Besides, if Harry was going to commit himself to really talking to his friends about Draco, then he wanted both of them to be present.  
  
“What do you say we go to that new pub in Diagon Alley, the one that makes you stand up to do the drinks?” Ron offered suddenly. “My shout.”  
  
Harry eyed him silently. He knew Ron remembered as well as he did what had happened the last time they were in a pub together. Ron wasn’t always at his best in crowds.  
  
“It’s a good thing you can do magic if you need to, to keep them off me,” said Ron, and offered him the smallest of daring smiles. “But you also shouldn’t  _have_ to.”  
  
Harry accepted it a second later. Ron wanted to make the experiment, and the last thing Harry wanted to do to him was encourage him to give that up when it could be so healthy for him. “Okay.”  
  
Ron’s smile roused old memories as they started towards the Apparition point, and none of them hurt.  
  
*  
  
“Harry.”  
  
Harry paused. He knew that shy brilliance in Draco’s eyes, the way he was clutching the chair in front of him. He and Scorpius had spent five minutes over here, and already Scorpius had got distracted by one of the books Harry had bought right after the war, when he was trying to learn more about the wizarding world and replace some of the endless scars in his brain. Harry had reasoned he would think about things other than blood and torture if he could fill his mind with bright pictures.   
  
Scorpius was peering at drawings of dragons and unicorns and making stories up about them in a soft voice to himself. Harry had expected him to turn around and want to tell those stories to either Harry or his father, but Draco shook his head when Harry caught his eye and said, “He doesn’t always do that. Sometimes he just wants to practice them first.”  
  
Harry nodded. “All right.”  
  
“Have you considered any of the other pure-blood customs you’ve been reading about?”  
  
 _Implementing them, he means._ Harry met Draco’s eyes and gave the confession he would have been unable to imagine giving two months ago—hell, maybe a fortnight ago. “I’m afraid that I’ll get one wrong.”  
  
Draco paused, then tilted his head slowly down until he looked like he was gazing at Harry over the top of a book himself. “I could help you with them.”  
  
“But you don’t want me to, because they’re supposed to be done alone,” Harry surmised. “And you want to be courted in the traditional way by someone who’s familiar enough with them not to need his hand held all the time.”  
  
Draco stared at him, as surprised as Scorpius the first time Golden flew. Then he turned his face away, and a burst of bright crimson covered his cheeks.  
  
“You must think it’s stupid,” he murmured.  
  
“I’ve done a lot worse than this for people I care for.” Harry wasn’t about to say the word “love” until he understood where this was going, how much he could give Draco, whether it would ever be what Draco wanted, whether he could integrate his friends into his life with Draco—things were confusing, and they would just have to stay confusing until they got themselves sorted out. “It’s going to wait for a bit while I study some more. Okay?”  
  
“One would think that a week flat on your back would give you plenty of time to study.”  
  
“I’ll have you know that I’ve spent lots of weeks flat on my back, and I  _always_ found something to do with my time other than study. Other than a few times I was in the infirmary at Hogwarts, and Hermione was there with my books right away.”  
  
Draco had bristled when he was first speaking, and Harry wondered if Draco had thought he was being made fun of. But then he smiled, a little, and leaned forwards as if he would connect their hands with a simple touch. “I’m sure that we can find something more interesting for you to do the next time you’re flat on your back.”  
  
Harry flushed up, the way that he wouldn’t have expected to. He and Draco were taking this so slowly, and the note that gave Draco permission to ask whatever he wanted had been his idea, and Draco seemed just as uncertain about how to deal with someone who didn’t know the pure-blood customs as Harry was how to deal with someone who  _did_. So Harry should have been the more confident one, and Draco the more embarrassed one. It was the way that Harry was used to it working with his friends, anyway.  
  
But now Draco pulled his hand back slowly, with a smirk that revealed how similar his thoughts were to Harry’s, just with a twist. Harry cleared his throat. “Well, we’ll get there. But it will take some time.”  
  
“You’re worth waiting for.”  
  
Harry was almost glad that Scorpius turned around and started telling them one of the stories he’d made up then, because there were only so many things he could say to that, and most of them would sound stupid. He settled for smiling some of them at Draco instead.  
  
*  
  
Harry leaned back and rubbed his aching head. He’d spent another evening in the study of the pure-blood books, and discovered yet another exception in the back of one to a custom he’d been sure he understood: how you were supposed to greet people when they arrived at your home for the first time. Apparently, besides weather, time of day, how well you knew them, degree of blood relation, and how formal the occasion was, it also depended on how recently they’d eaten.  
  
“I just don’t know how to keep track of all these different things,” Harry told the walls of his library. “I spent my youth fighting a really simple and straightforward war, what do you expect?”  
  
As if in response, his front door shuddered beneath a knock.  
  
Harry promptly called his wand into his hand, with a flick that came from his Auror training. It was too late for his friends or Draco to come to the door; they would have called him through the Floo if it was an emergency, anyway, since that was the faster way to travel. That meant he could probably expect another attack.  
  
Although he had to admit, he didn’t know a lot of his enemies who would bother with a polite knock first.  
  
Harry eased up to the front door and tapped the wall with his wand, muttering a short phrase he’d added the other day after he finished repairing the hole in his wards. A section of the wall turned transparent, and let him see his front step as well as most of the street.  
  
A single wizard stood there, in blue robes edged with silver. Harry didn’t recognize the trim, even from his books. On the other hand, there was also a glamour over the stranger’s face, a swirling, many-edged confusion of color that few honest people would wear.  
  
“Harry Potter?” The wizard was staring at the transparent section of wall as though he could see Harry behind it, even though the spell ensured that the clarity only went one way.  
  
 _Well, there are such things as spells that let someone hear a heartbeat._ “Who’s asking?” Harry asked, in what he thought was a terribly polite way.  
  
“Someone who used to belong to the Risen Cobras,” said the man. “Someone who thinks that he can solve the problems between you and them. Will you let me in?”  
  
“No,” said Harry promptly.  
  
“I dislike talking about my business in the street.”  
  
“And I dislike people cursing me with magic that was intended to cripple me if I used any spells.”  
  
The man hesitated. Then he said, “If I swear on my wand and magic not to harm you while I’m inside?”  
  
“And my house, and my friends, and my books, and—”  
  
The man sighed. “Very well. Perhaps a meeting in a neutral location will be more to your liking.” He dropped something on the step beside him, and then turned and walked away, Apparating well short of the actual Apparition point.  
  
Harry Summoned the card from under the door instead of opening it. He thought Draco would be proud of his caution.  
  
But the card didn’t really enlighten him.  _The Jackal’s Head, Friday, 1 PM._  
  
Harry leaned back with a small snort. So he would probably go—as soon as he found out what the Jackal’s Head was supposed to be—but there was no way that he was going alone. He hoped his mysterious “friend” was okay with his real friends coming along. 


	21. Tear-Bought

“You aren’t going.”  
  
Harry bristled a little before he could stop himself. He could understand what Draco was saying, and he was glad that he hadn’t let the rogue Risen Cobra, or whoever he was, into his house. And he had never intended to go alone to the Jackal’s Head, whatever Draco might think of his caution. But to say that he wouldn’t go at all was a little presumptuous.  
  
“And why do you think that you know what the best course is?” Harry took back the scrap of paper the Risen Cobra had given him, which was lying on the dining room table in Malfoy Manor near Draco’s hand. He smoothed it out and studied it again, but it remained a simple sequence of words and a time. There was no clue to it that would give a hidden message. He had practiced spells on it that would have revealed anything like that. “You weren’t there.”  
  
“You aren’t going.”  
  
Harry whipped back around. He could understand and appreciate what Draco was doing and still argue with him, he thought, in a way that he hadn’t been able to argue with his friends in years. “I won’t be under a curse that keeps me from using magic this time. I won’t be taken by surprise.”  
  
“If you go, you will.” Draco’s jaw was pressed out as he rose to his feet, and Harry could hear the slight grinding of his teeth. It made him glad that Scorpius was taking a nap right now and couldn’t see them argue. Draco stalked around the table towards him. “There could be anything there, any kind of ambush—”  
  
“I wasn’t planning on going alone,” Harry snapped. “Any more than I was planning on performing that tracking spell alone. I thought I’d take Ron, since he has the full Auror training that I never got. And experience dealing with even more Risen Cobras than I do.”  _If barely._ Ron had taken a lot of them to prison, but a lot of them had also come after Harry when he was alone, the way the one in the middle of Diagon Alley had.  
  
“You’re not going.” Draco was near enough to reach him by now, and he did it, wrapping one arm around Harry’s shoulders and pulling Harry forcefully against his side, as if that would keep Harry from running off in some kind of wild rebellion. “Because you could be killed.”  
  
“Is there some pure-blood custom that says you need to look after me in the most  _patronizing_ manner you can?” Harry rasped at him, and wriggled free. Draco was still tracking him with that intense look in his eyes that Harry didn’t understand. Why wasn’t even caution good enough for him? “Or do I need to give you a silver mirror with  _Back off_ written on it in crushed rubies?”  
  
“Nothing like that,” said Draco, and he looked damnably unruffled. “I just mean that you aren’t going.”  
  
“ _Tell me why_.” Harry hadn’t even known that he could sound like that.  
  
Draco closed his eyes, and something of the reality beneath the mask came creeping through at last. He leaned in with his hands on Harry’s shoulders, and whispered, “Because I can’t lose you.”  
  
Harry stared at him for a second. He thought he was gaping. But he felt as though he had the emptiness in his mouth, not his head. He sighed and rested unsteady hands on Draco’s shoulders in return, holding him up. “You know that the Risen Cobras and other people hunt me all the time,” he whispered back. “That you could lose me just walking down the street. I’m sorry you feel this way, but I can’t stay indoors and with you all the time.”  
  
“You don’t understand everything I’m saying.” Draco’s eyes opened again, bright and tearless. “I’ve got attached to you like I haven’t with anyone since the war, except Scorpius. Astoria and I always knew that our connection was going to end someday.” His thumbs smoothed rapidly, raptly, over Harry’s collarbone. “I shouldn’t have become attached to someone who doesn’t even know the customs to court me properly.”  
  
Harry shifted restlessly. “I’m learning as fast as I can.”  
  
Draco shook his head. “You’re  _you._  I think I would have got attached even if you threw all those books away and never showed any intention to learn about pure-blood customs ever again.” He leaned his forehead against Harry’s chest. “Please don’t go. Nothing you could learn from them could possibly be worth what you would risk in return.”  
  
Harry patted his back awkwardly. “I really do trust Ron to keep me safe.”  
  
“I don’t.”  
  
Shaken by the stark reply, Harry tugged at the hair on the nape of Draco’s neck. He finally lifted his head and met Harry’s gaze again. “My friends are really getting better,” Harry said. He hadn’t told Draco much of this, except snippets here and there that Draco hadn’t seemed interested in, but now he needed him to understand. “They aren’t as wrapped up in their pasts and leaning on me anymore. It frightened them when they realized that they were lost because they didn’t have me to lean on.”  
  
“But if it comes down to an attack,” Draco whispered, voice as soft as though he was speaking in a prayer, “I  _know_ that you would spring to defend Weasley, and bear the brunt of their spells yourself.”  
  
“I’m—” Harry cut off his attempt to say that he was better able to bear them. That wasn’t true. Ron’s Auror training was the reason that Harry had wanted to take him along in the first place. “I’m still able to hold them off and concentrate them on me. I’m the one they want. If they go after me and never think of Ron as a threat, then he can come in behind them and stab them in the back.”  
  
“Or they might go after you from the first, and never pay attention to him at all, and he might be a little slow.” Draco’s eyes never moved from Harry’s, as though he thought he could convince Harry by the sheer force of his stare. “I lie awake at night and shake when I think about how many risks you take on a daily basis.”  
  
Harry shifted restlessly. “There’s nothing I can do about that unless I stay penned up behind wards all the time. And I spend enough time doing that as it is.”  _The way I spent enough time resting in bed._ He had known even when he bade Draco farewell and left that Draco would have preferred it if he’d stayed for another week. For another fortnight. For forever.  
  
Draco only shook his head once. “I told you, I never expected to get this attached to someone who doesn’t know the customs, and never to someone in such danger,” he breathed. “My father wasn’t in such danger, after either war.”  
  
“Your father wasn’t as central,” Harry began. He would push forwards his friends as his helpers whenever he could, but he thought Draco was being silly to ignore the fact that Harry was the target of a lot of people because he had been a target during the war.  
  
Draco sighed heavily at him, making Harry shut up for a second. “I know, Harry,” he whispered, reaching up so that he could slide his hand across his forehead, finger lingering for a second on the faded scar. “I know that you have to face dangers. What I’m saying is that this is a danger you don’t have to face. Don’t go. It’s most likely a trap, and if not, then they’ll lie and talk in circles and not tell you anything worth hearing.”  
  
“Ron can—”  
  
“I don’t trust him to protect you, either,” Draco interrupted, and then stood there, watching Harry in what looked like patient interest, as if he thought Harry could come up with another solution.  
  
“Then I’ll bring  _you_ ,” Harry said. “If you really want to go.”  
  
Draco’s body flinched, and then was still a second later. Harry had already seen it, though, if Draco was struggling to hide it, and he hid a sigh as he said, “I wouldn’t want you to come if you aren’t comfortable. So you can stay here. But that means I’ll go with Ron, and you’ll just have to get used to the idea.”  
  
“I would love to go,” Draco said, his voice unsteady. “If you’re really ready to tell the world about us.”  
  
“Do you think that just appearing beside me and helping me possibly escape from a trap, if there is one, is going to tell other people everything?” Harry didn’t think that was possible, not least because he was so confused himself about what lay between him and Draco.  
  
“No,” said Draco, his eyes still wide and soft, and the lines of his face looked bony. “But there are some pure-bloods who would see the ring and the bracelet, and reach the conclusion that—we may be heading towards. And there are some people out there who might know me, and who might be in attendance at this meeting. They could see the way I looked at you, and know I don’t look at a lot of people like that.”  
  
Harry firmly took and squeezed Draco’s cold hand. “I don’t mind that. The only way I would is if you think it might put you and Scorpius in danger, to be associated with me.”  
  
“We already are. There are articles in the paper that implied as much.” Draco took a step back and studied Harry from that narrow distance as though much more separated them, his spine absurdly straight. “If you’ll be comfortable showing me off, I’ll be more than happy to be there.”  
  
“Good,” said Harry. “You and Ron can practice getting along.” He shook his head as Draco rolled his eyes. “He’s getting better.”  
  
“If he can’t stand to be in the same room as me, then how can he stand to be in the same pub?” Draco asked. He had at least been able to tell Harry that the Jackal’s Head  _was_ a pub, rather like the Hog’s Head, but in the middle of wizarding London rather than in Hogsmeade. It was a common meeting place for the sort of people who wouldn’t quite venture down Knockturn Alley, but might be tempted to.  
  
“Because he’s getting better,” Harry repeated stubbornly. “And he already told me that he would support whatever I wanted to do about this.”  
  
“You told them before you told me. I thought I was the first one.” Draco made a little motion as if he was going to pull a cloak closer about him, and then remembered that he wasn’t wearing one.  
  
Harry gave a moan of exasperation, and caught Draco around the waist, pulling him close. “Will you  _listen,_ you idiot? I mean that he promised to support me when it comes to the Risen Cobras, not that I showed him this piece of paper already.”  
  
“Oh.” Draco smoothed out his face and moved in to rest his hand on Harry’s cheek. “I suppose that’s all right, then.”  
  
Harry muttered, “It had better be, you gorgeous idiot,” and kissed Draco on the cheek hard enough to sting.  
  
*  
  
Ron dealt with Draco by keeping his head turned away from him as they walked into the Jackal’s Head together. Harry could live with that.  
  
The Jackal’s Head wasn’t as big a pub as Harry had thought it would be, given that Draco had described it as a center of activity. It did seem to have more shadows and corners where extra tables could be placed than an ordinary pub, though. Harry made sure that his hand was casually by his wand, and a few people who had turned to look when they walked in turned away again.  
  
“Harry Potter?” The woman who stepped towards him was much taller and paler than Madam Rosmerta, but she still gave him that incredulous stare he was used to seeing.  
  
“Hi,” Harry said, with a faint nod that he hoped would convey the business-like nature of the reason they were here. “We’re supposed to meet someone at one. Do you have a table with someone waiting? Or shall we take a seat and wait for them?”  
  
“No one’s asked for you,” said the woman. She looked like a mantis, but she was folding her arms with a considering air that Harry reckoned came more from her adding up how much money she’d make from them. “Where do you want to sit?”  
  
“There,” Harry said, holding his hand out in a random way towards the right wall. There was a round table halfway along it with shadows hanging above it; this time, Harry could actually make out the sharp twitch of a suspended Shadow Charm. He smiled a little when the woman blinked at him. “Yes, I’m serious.”  
  
“All right,” said the woman. “Then you can pay first. For excess damage to tables and chairs that might be caused by dueling.”  
  
Harry shrugged and pulled out three Galleons. It was probably more than what the chairs at the table were worth. “Here, then.”  
  
The keeper took the money from him in a dream, as though she hadn’t expected him to pay any charge at all, much less an exorbitant one, and then she straightened up with a sniff and waved them on towards the table. “Go on and sit down, then. All of you. And tell me what you want to drink.”  
  
“Butterbeer,” said Harry, making sure that he took the chair that had a good view of the door. It wasn’t the one that sat with its back to the wall, but that didn’t matter, not when he had a trained Auror and a paranoid Slytherin watching out for him.  
  
“We don’t serve that here. We’re not a place for kids.”  
  
“Or for people with a wide variety of tastes, I see,” said Harry mildly, glancing at her and enjoying the flush of her cheeks. “I’ll have Firewhisky.”  
  
Ron ordered the same thing, while Draco rasped out the name of what was probably a wine Harry had never heard of and wouldn’t want to try and pronounce; it had way too many syllables. The woman gave them one more irritated look and disappeared into the deepest shadows behind the bar.  
  
“The more time we spend here, the less I like it,” said Draco. He was rolling his fingers slowly over and over on the table, as if he had an imaginary coin between them. “It’s changed from when I saw it just after the war. More people here who look as if they’d rob us if they could.”  
  
“But that’s true of everyone who always came here,” Ron said, seeming to have forgotten that he wasn’t speaking to Draco. He even leaned around Harry, sitting behind them, to frown at Draco. In a way, Harry thought, that was progress. “If anything, the ending of the war probably cleaned up a lot of the Death Eaters.”  
  
“If your only definition of criminal is a Death Eater, then I wonder how extensive that Auror training was,” Draco said sweetly.  
  
Ron flushed Gryffindor red and lurched to his feet as the woman set two mugs and one fluted crystal glass down on the bar. “I’m going to get those,” he told Harry, in an unnecessarily loud voice.  
  
Harry caught and held his eye. “Thank you for doing what you’ve done.”  
  
Ron hesitated, then reached out and touched Harry’s shoulder in a rushing way. “Sure, mate. I wouldn’t have let you come here alone.”  _Or alone with Malfoy,_ his expression now all too clearly said.  
  
Harry went back to watching the crowd. He had a feeling that they’d been watched as they came in, that whoever had “invited” them was here already, and simply hadn’t wanted to make himself conspicuous by asking for a table that would involve Harry Potter.  
  
Sure enough, the tall man he recognized from his front step a few days ago stalked up to the table a second later. “We didn’t agree that you could bring an escort,” he said, and for some reason, he was glaring at Draco more than he was watching Ron.  
  
Harry did chance a look at Draco, but there was no recognition on his face. “Surely you didn’t think I would come unprotected,” he said. “Not after encountering enemies who could punch a hole in my wards.”  
  
The gaze switched to him. The man looked as though he might draw his wand and curse someone, but Harry raised his eyebrows and shook his head a little. The man finally frowned and took the seat across from Harry, hunching in what might have been displeasure.  
  
“Your reputation said you would,” the man muttered.  
  
“Was that what you were counting on?” Draco asked softly, before Harry could say anything. “I hope that you weren’t, or I might have to revise my estimate of whether you’re a threat or not.” Harry was utterly sure that he had his hand on his own wand under the table, too.  
  
The man shut his eyes and spent a moment massaging his forehead. “It’s more complicated than you know,” he said, and he sounded tired. “More likely to explode. I didn’t want to involve other people.”  
  
“Just Harry,” said Draco, and there was a pure disgust in his tone that Harry hadn’t heard in a long time. He touched Draco’s wrist, just as Ron slid up behind the stranger and put a wand to the back of his neck.  
  
The man didn’t even look around. “I need to talk to you,” he told Harry. “You, alone. We need to do it without an audience present.”  
  
Harry didn’t hesitate. “No. You say it in front of my friends or you don’t say it.”  
  
The man seemed to weigh alternatives for a long moment, before his face tightened with exasperation and he said abruptly, “Fine. Then you should know that the Risen Cobras have found a way to turn your own magic against you, and that’s going to be their next tactic. I really think they’re going to kill you this time. I don’t see a way that you can survive.”


	22. Known Threats

Harry blinked at the man and said the first thing that came into his head. “You don’t think I can survive. Great. Then why are you bothering to warn me?”  
  
The stranger sighed and shook his head. If he noticed the way that Ron leaned threateningly across the back of his neck and pressed the wand down, he gave no sign of it. “I thought you might know a way. You have contact with many of the best and cleverest wizards in the world, at least if you want it. You could ask the Ministry to protect you, or maybe your friend George Weasley. Maybe they could come up with something that defeated this spell. I wanted to give you at least a fighting chance.”  
  
“It would help if you told me more about the spell, the way they developed it, and what they want.”  
  
“You know what they want.” The man grimaced. “To repay you for the way you destroyed Voldemort, who they held as the champion of Dark wizards everywhere and the one most likely to make the Ministry regret that they took the rights of Dark wizards away.”  
  
At least the way this man talked about Voldemort made Harry fairly sure that he wasn’t a supporter. “And you? What do I call you? Where do you come into this?”  
  
“You can call me Malcolm.” The man held up a hand when Harry opened his mouth. “No, it’s not my real name, not by a long shot, but I think you can at least put up with it.”  
  
Whether he could put up with it wasn’t the first thing that would have occurred to Harry about a stranger’s name, but he let that pass. “How did you learn about this spell?” It occurred to him that he’d asked that before and Malcolm hadn’t responded.  
  
This time, Malcolm did, although he gave Harry a narrow-eyed look that Harry returned with interest. “Because I was part of the research team that created it.”  
  
Ron leaned on the back of Malcolm’s neck with a restrained roar. Draco held out a hand. There was something in it that Harry hadn’t seen before, a sparkling, six-sided crystal that looked oddly like a snowflake that was immune to heat. “Say the word, Harry, and he can dissolve,” said Draco.  
  
Ron seemed to be alternating his horrified stare between Draco and Malcolm now, and even given the usual clientele of the Jackal’s Head, Harry thought a statement like Draco’s would bring them more interest than they wanted right now. “Put that  _away_ ,” he said in a hiss out of the corner of his mouth, and focused on Malcolm again. “So let’s say that I believe you and I want to use your knowledge to combat the spell that the Risen Cobras are going to throw at me. Why should I trust you? You could be an advance scout for the group that gave me wrong information in an attempt to trick me into either panicking or acting stupidly.”  
  
For an answer, Malcolm turned his gaze on Draco. “I’m sure that your friend there carries Veritaserum. Why don’t you ask him to test it on me?”  
  
“You carry Veritaserum?” Harry asked, turning to Draco, because frankly he wanted the answer from him, and Draco was also more interesting to him than Malcolm was.  
  
Draco flushed, but nodded, his gaze not leaving Malcolm. “How he guessed it, I don’t know. I always do, though.”  
  
“A lot of the Risen Cobras are former comrades of yours, and they always do,” said Malcolm, in what seemed like impatience. “It wasn’t an original or a deep thought.”  
  
“I am their opposite in at least one important way,” said Draco, and this time he flashed the bracelet around his wrist, as if he  _wanted_ Malcolm to see it and recognize it for what it was. Malcolm’s gaze dropped to it, a bit contemptuously, and then abruptly snapped over to the ring on Harry’s finger. Harry raised his eyebrows at him, smiling. He had to admit that he didn’t look forward to the attempts of other people to define what he and Draco were to each other, but he would rather do it than let someone else do it, either.  
  
“That is  _impossible_ ,” said Malcolm, and Harry didn’t think he meant “that you could have found a bracelet and a ring that look so alike.” “You would court a former Death Eater?” He stared at Harry, seeming lost.  
  
“It’s incredible, is what it is,” Harry corrected him, and turned to Draco. “The Veritaserum doesn’t need to be administered any particular way, does it?”  
  
“No,” said Draco, and took out a glittering crystal vial that made the light seem to bend around it instead of pass through it. Harry was sure that the answer to that particular riddle was some Potions brewer’s secret that he had no interest in learning. He would trust Draco to let him know if it was important. “And I suggest that we let Weasley administer it, since he’s the one closest to our friend here.”  
  
Harry caught Draco’s eye as Draco solemnly handed the vial to Ron. Draco silently inclined his head. So he  _was_ perfectly aware of what Ron felt about him, and wasn’t above using some manipulative diplomacy.  
  
Well, that was true of Harry, as well. He couldn’t fault Draco for it.  
  
Ron took the vial with a truly impressive frown, although Harry didn’t think he distrusted that the potion was what Draco said it was. He uncapped the vial with a small pop and tilted it. Malcolm was already tipping his head back, his tongue out. If he was a liar, he was the most risk-taking liar Harry had already seen.  
  
Which only made it all the more depressing, of course.  
  
 _Why can’t they just accept that I freed them from their crazy Lord and he isn’t coming back?_ Harry fumed to himself, but he tried to keep his expression polite as Malcolm swallowed, and the slightly dreamy look came into his eyes that Harry tended to associate with Veritaserum. Harry leaned forwards and asked the first question. “Are you really loyal to the Risen Cobras, or to your own idea of what’s right?”  
  
“ _Harry_ ,” Draco hissed, sounding slightly scandalized. “You’re supposed to ask some test questions first, like his name, to make sure it’s working right.”  
  
Harry didn’t point out that they didn’t know Malcolm’s full name, so they wouldn’t know if they could trust his answer anyway, because Malcolm was answering. “I was once loyal to them, but I left them.”  
  
Harry nodded. “Were you a Death Eater during the war?” He didn’t think so, based on Malcolm’s scandalized reaction to Harry  _dating_ one, but stranger and more hypocritical things had happened.  
  
“No,” said Malcolm.  
  
“What is your association with the Risen Cobras, then?” Ron cut in, and Harry leaned back. He was more than happy to let Ron take control of the questioning. Ron was the one who had actual training in interrogation techniques, something Harry had left the Aurors before mastering completely.  
  
“I was a researcher for them. I was bored and looking for excitement, and this looked to be the most exciting way to be a Dark wizard after Voldemort’s fall.” It was odd hearing such information recited in such a bored, passionless voice, Harry considered, but then again, that was what Veritaserum did to you. “I wanted to develop new spells. They let me.”  
  
“Were you the sole producer of the spell that’s going to turn Harry’s magic against him?” Surprisingly, it was Draco who asked that question, sitting up with a steely gleam in his eyes. Harry turned his head in surprise, and then understood when Draco met his gaze. He was determined to protect Harry no matter what, and maybe he thought Ron wouldn’t have asked this question.  
  
“I was one of two.”  
  
Once again, no extra information, only the basics attached to the question actually asked. Harry grimaced in acknowledgement of that and asked, “Who was the other one?” since Ron seemed to be waiting for him.  
  
“Brandon Jekyll.”  
  
Harry raised his eyebrows sideways at Draco. Draco gave a shake of his head so small that Harry thought most people would just register it as a blurring motion, not the actual negation it was. Harry sighed. Draco didn’t know him, then.  
  
“Is he an experienced spell creator?” Ron was now resting his wand on the side of Malcolm’s throat, so relaxed—well, at least for an Auror who had someone to interrogate—that Harry knew he thought the Veritaserum was working. He would still have reacted as though he considered Malcolm a threat, otherwise.  
  
“Yes,” said Malcolm, monotonous. Ron asked the expected follow-up question, and he said, “So am I.”  
  
“It doesn’t make much sense,” Draco muttered under his breath to Harry. “Experienced spell creators are rare. There’s lots of wizards who want to muck about with magic, but the ones who get the chance and prove themselves valuable should have had backing behind them. They wouldn’t need to join a poor lot like the Risen Cobras to prove themselves.”  
  
Ron proved he was listening by asking Malcolm, “Why didn’t you accept a contract to work for the Ministry?”  
  
“They wouldn’t have let me play with Dark Arts,” said Malcolm, and Draco grimaced a little, and Harry knew that was good enough to be the answer.  
  
“What kind of Dark Arts did you put into this spell?” Harry asked, deciding that they had established enough of Malcolm’s background to move onto the threat itself. “How does it work?”  
  
“We worked with some of your blood,” said Malcolm, staring at him. “We Transfigured it into a solid crystal so that we could see the patterns of magic formed inside it. Then we began to torture the magic.”  
  
“What does that mean, torture the magic?” Ron asked. He sounded a little shaken. Draco had shuddered beside him, and Harry thought he probably knew what the phrase meant. Well, Harry knew where he was going for an explanation afterwards, if this one didn’t clarify things enough for him.  
  
And probably even if it did, honestly. Harry liked to listen to Draco talk, and he trusted Draco in a way that he never would Malcolm, even as someone who seemed to be genuinely on his side now.  
  
“It means that we would take the magic and stretch the crystal it formed into in the blood, and make it assume new patterns,” said Malcolm. “We fed new magic into the crystal, and broke and twisted it until we understood how your magic worked and how to put it back together. Then we began to Transfigure the crystal into new shapes itself.”  
  
“But that would mean that it would only work if they fed Harry the new crystal?” Draco let his voice rise at the end, and Malcolm took it as a question.  
  
“It would only work that way, yes.” Malcolm’s voice was almost dreamy, and he might have been looking at a wall for all the response he showed as his eyes passed over Harry’s face. “It might mean that we would have to hold it down and feed it to him. It might mean that we could Transfigure the blood back into a liquid and put it into his food. Those were the two main ideas. Other people thought that perhaps we could Apparate the blood into his body somehow, or—”  
  
“I think I see,” Harry said, interrupting not for himself but for Draco and Ron, who both looked as though they’d like to kill Malcolm. Harry had some sympathy for that point of view, but he did want to make sure that they got all the information they needed from Malcolm first. “And they’re still going ahead with that plan?”  
  
“Yes,” said Malcolm.  
  
“How do you know?” Harry asked, after a moment of waiting for more and then having to remind himself that someone on Veritaserum couldn’t follow natural instincts to tell him, when there  _were_ no natural instincts to tell him.  
  
“Because I left spying spells in their headquarters.” There was a faint note of satisfaction in Malcolm’s voice, probably all the Veritaserum would permit him. “It tells me what they’re planning to do, and the blood is still the plan.”  
  
Harry nodded slowly. “Why did you say that you didn’t think I could survive? It seems to me that if I stay away from them and any possible means of introducing that blood crystal into my body, I’m safe.”  
  
“They planned to come into the joke shop where you worked as ordinary customers. Then they would reveal themselves as fans, and ask you to accept a gift from them. The blood would be introduced into the gift.”  
  
Harry cursed softly to himself. Yes, that might have worked. Witness the way he melted around kids, and especially around Scorpius that first time he and Draco had visited Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes. All they would have to do was bring a kid with them, and his fate was sealed.  
  
“And they’re confident that I don’t suspect anything? They don’t suspect  _you_  for leaving?”  
  
“They thought I left because Jekyll claimed credit for every single development of the spell, and I was tired of having my work denied. They don’t think that I’m with you or have any idea of it.”  
  
“Will they, after today?” Harry cast another glance around the Jackal’s Head. Despite the wards they’d put up, none of them had come in glamours, for the same reason that Malcolm hadn’t: hiding from an informant they didn’t know made them more likely to miss each other.  
  
“I don’t know.”  
  
Harry nodded, his mind already buzzing with plans. “Can you stay safe and go underground if we let you go? Or will they manage to track you down to every single bolthole you could find?”  
  
“ _Harry_ ,” whispered Draco in what sounded like deep disgust, almost crushing his hand, but Harry was busy listening to Malcolm’s reply. It wasn’t as though he could deny his instinct to save people, anyway, especially someone who had been personally helpful to him at great risk.  
  
“I can find a place that should be beyond their reach. I do not know for sure, but I think there may be such a place.”  
  
“Good,” said Harry softly, and then, because he wasn’t such a fool as Ron and Draco thought even if he was a different  _kind_ of fool, “What is your full name?”  
  
For the first time, there was a flicker as though Malcolm was fighting the Veritaserum and trying to surface. Maybe he thought Harry would have been grateful enough for his aid not to ask the question. But the answer came out anyway. “John Edward Tuffet.”  
  
Harry sighed a little. He thought he recognized the name Tuffet as a minor pure-blood family, and Draco had stiffened beside him. It would make sense if Tuffet knew the pure-blood customs, and had recognized the bracelet and the ring.  
  
“And will you tell anyone else of this meeting if we let you go? Anyone in the Risen Cobras?”  
  
“My life will be forfeit if anyone is watching, so no,” said Tuffet, and Harry nodded again and nodded to Ron.  
  
“ _Mate_ ,” Ron said, a protest as deep as his chest, not moving the wand away from the back of Tuffet’s neck.  
  
“We have to,” Harry said. “We got him to tell us everything that could be important, and it’s not as though we can force him go to the Ministry and testify.”  
  
“Really?” Ron tightened his neck muscles a little. “He just admitted to playing around with Dark Arts and creating a spell that’s dangerous in the pursuit of killing someone specific. That sounds like I can arrest him to me.”  
  
“And then his testimony will come out, and what happens if they alter the plan and make it into something other than a Transfigured blood crystal after all?” Harry shook his head fiercely, holding Ron’s gaze and his ire. “Come on, Ron. We’ve done what we can.  _All_ we can. He risked a little. We should give him the chance to protect himself.”  
  
It took ten seconds, twenty seconds, but then Ron cursed in disgust and took his wand away from Tuffet’s neck. “Fine. I just hope that you won’t regret having such a soft heart later, Harry.”  
  
“It was one of the things keeping me out of the Aurors,” Harry pointed out mildly, and then spoke to Tuffet with all the kindness he could, considering the man had been one of the people trying to kill him. “You can go.”  
  
Veritaserum or not, Tuffet understood that, and also obviously didn’t see any reason to stick around. He stood up and almost bolted out of the pub.  
  
They’d drawn more than enough attention, Harry decided, noting other patrons of the Jackal’s Head focusing on them, even if it was through darting little sideways glances. He stood up. “Let’s go,” he told Draco and Ron.  
  
Ron went first out the door, and Draco fell into step behind him. Harry knew it was partially so he could guard Harry’s back from threats, but another reason was obvious in the heavy hand that Draco laid on his shoulder. “You’re mine, damn it,” Draco whispered, as if he understood and resented the conclusion at the same time.  
  
“Yes? What does that have to do with anything?” Harry asked, as nicely as he could.  
  
“It means that you’re getting behind wards and  _staying_ there until Weasley can quietly alert the Aurors and they round up the rest of the Risen Cobras.”  
  
It impressed Harry that Draco could read Ron well enough to know that was the plan, but he didn’t say so. He said only, “We’ll work something out.”  
  
“You behind wards.”  
  
“We’ll work something out,” Harry repeated with deliberate vagueness, and went outside on Ron’s nod, ignoring the hiss of exasperation from behind him. 


	23. A Serious Talk

“I really do need to talk to you, Harry.”  
  
Harry sighed and leaned back. He had spent most of the morning researching, through several books in Draco’s library, exactly what torturing magic and turning blood into crystals could do to someone. It sounded nasty, like the blood crystal would give his enemies a much better picture of his strengths and weaknesses than just observing him would do, but it was also hard for Harry to get a grip on.   
  
And the politely determined expression on Draco’s face as he peered around the doorway of the library didn’t fool Harry. Draco wanted to talk to him about staying behind wards and letting people fight for him again. He didn’t seem to grasp that Harry would never do that, even for someone he loved. The one thing he couldn’t do was let people he loved take unnecessary risks.  
  
“About what?” Harry asked, coming out of his reverie, as he noted that Draco was still standing in the doorway and hadn’t moved any closer.  
  
Draco took a deep breath and moved in. Harry saw he was carrying a small wooden box inlaid with silver, and even from this distance Harry could smell the soft scent that came off it. Cedar wood.  
  
What had those books about pure-blood customs said when they discussed cedar wood? Something important, Harry thought, his mind racing as he stared at the box, but at the moment, he couldn’t really remember what it was.  
  
“Harry,” said Draco, and his voice was deep and powerful. He came to a halt in front of Harry and bowed to him, which made Harry shift uncomfortably. “Will you do me the honor of accepting this gift?”  
  
Harry studied his face carefully. Then he opened his mouth.  
  
“No questions, please,” Draco said, and Harry saw his eyes flutter shut for a second while sweat crept down his forehead. The controlled façade was an illusion, Harry decided. Draco had probably had to work up his courage for a while to approach him.  
  
 _Of course he would choose a custom where no questions are part of it._ But Harry trusted Draco not to do something that would trap him or require him to make some kind of disgusting response, so he reached over, took the cedar wood box, and opened it.  
  
Inside lay a key, a silver key on a thin chain so fine that it was hard for Harry to tell if it was made of gold or something else. Harry picked it up and turned it back and forth, watching the key spin and staring a little dumbly. He had thought there was some kind of weapon in there, or maybe another ring with a more serious purpose than the Portkey ring Draco had already given him, but he would never have thought of this.  
  
“This key symbolizes that you’ve been granted the sanctuary of Malfoy Manor,” said Draco, and his voice was deep enough that it sounded sad. He reached out, gently caught the key and stilled its spinning, and then laid it in Harry’s hand and folded his fingers over it. “You are welcome behind its wards. You are welcome within its protected places. You will always find a willing hand to serve you and fight beside you here.”  
  
“That’s good,” said Harry, the only thing he could say when he didn’t really know what the gesture meant or symbolized. The way Draco looked at him made it clear something more was required, and Harry continued hastily, “I appreciate that you’re inviting me into your home. I know that most pure-bloods don’t do that except when it’s family.”  
  
“Family,” Draco agreed. “As in born, blood family. Or as in an accepted spouse or lover.”  
  
Harry didn’t snap, because he still trusted Draco not to place him in a position where they wouldn’t have any choice except to get married. But it was hard to keep from snapping as he said, “I’m still going out to fight the Risen Cobras, you know.”  
  
Draco closed his eyes in what looked like pain. His voice stayed smooth, though, as he said, “You are welcome anywhere within the Manor. Within my chambers or those of my son. Within the potions lab or the libraries.”  
  
“I should bloody hope so, considering I spent most of the weekend here,” Harry said, and gestured at the shelves filled with books around him.  
  
Draco stared at him with his heart in his eyes, and Harry sighed and focused on the key for a minute. He blinked when he realized something. “This isn’t magical.” There was no aura around the key at all, and the only thing flashing from it was the light it caught as it turned on its delicate chain.  
  
“No,” Draco agreed. “It’s a symbol. A symbol of the welcome extended to you, and an invitation for you to stay as long as you like.”  
  
Harry swallowed. “I’m not doing this as, as some kind of fuck you to you or anything,” he said, and put the key down on the table, and stood up so that he and Draco were more on the same level. He was getting uncomfortable just sitting there. “I know there are risks. It’s just, I want to run those risks, too, and I want to make sure that you and Scorpius are safe. That’s one main reason I want to fight, so that you don’t have to run the risks.”  
  
“If I said the greatest risk of all is that I’ll get my heart broken, would you disregard it?”  
  
“No,” Harry whispered, and put his arms around Draco, and stood there for a minute holding him. Draco leaned forwards so his brow rested on Harry’s shoulder, and his breathing turned deep and slow. Harry swallowed and repeated, “No, of course not. But it does mean that I don’t want you running the risks, either.”  
  
“Let Weasley do it,” said Draco fiercely. “Weasley and the other Aurors. He wants to, and he’s trained.”  
  
“But what if the Risen Cobras come and hammer on the wards, and it turns out that they aren’t strong enough to hold them back? Then you and Scorpius are at risk again.” Harry shook his head. “I still think the best plan is for me to handle them myself.”  
  
“And _I_ don’t.”  
  
Harry stepped back and forced himself to remain calm for a moment. He knew Draco had his reasons for disagreeing. Some of his friends--including Hermione, from the owl she’d sent him last night--agreed with Draco, for that matter. Harry had always promised himself that he would carefully check his impulses if his friends disagreed with them.  
  
But now, it was hard to bite back his frustration and impatience and talk in a rational manner. From the way Draco was staring at him, though, he would demand nothing else.  
  
“It’s touching that you want to protect me,” Harry began. He saw Draco’s expression alter, and added hastily, “No, it _is._ For the same reason that I love my friends for wanting to protect me. I know it means you care. I never had that when I was growing up. I try not to take it for granted now that I’m adult and do.”  
  
Draco’s expression wavered as though it was a pool of water broken by a thrown rock for a second, and Harry could imagine all the different things that he wanted to ask about. Instead, though, he took a deep breath and asked courageously, “And you think that you know better than three or four top-rate minds combined?”  
  
It might not have been hard for Draco to call Hermione top-rate, but Harry accepted the compliment to Ron the way it was meant, with a smile and a nod. “Yeah. Because how would your plan end? _Where_ would it end? I can’t just sit behind the wards forever. I have a life to live. When would I be able to live it?”  
  
Draco looked at him as if he was mad. “When the Aurors have rounded up the Risen Cobras. Of course it’s not going to be forever. Only until they can manage it.”  
  
“And the next threat? And the one after that?”  
  
“There’s not going to be another threat as bad,” Draco said stubbornly, but already his expression had wavered again.  
  
“Yes, there is,” Harry said, very gently, and this time he wrapped an arm around Draco’s shoulders and leaned against him, chest to chest. “There will be, because that’s the way my life works. Or even if they aren’t as dangerous as the Risen Cobras are, you’ll think they are, because that’s the way you care about me. I love and value you for that. But I can’t give in to the impulse to hide all the time and listen to you all the time. Or I’ll never stop.”  
  
“Maybe your friends would speak differently about that one, because they’ve had a lot of people to care about and I’ve had few of them,” said Draco, voice hard as old wood. “If they do, then I’d listen to them and let you out from behind the wards.”  
  
“ _Let_ me,” said Harry, and he made his voice very delicate.  
  
Draco gestured wildly at him, face flushing. “ _You_ know what I mean! Of course I wouldn’t try to keep you forcibly behind the wards, but--”  
  
“It’s a distraction from the main topic, I know,” Harry said, and steered them back towards that one. “If they disagreed with you, then you would urge me to listen to them over you. Really? If you thought it was a real threat?”  
  
Draco opened his mouth, then flushed and shut it again, and didn’t answer.  
  
Harry nodded, and hoped his eyes were tender, the way he wanted them to be. “I can’t go on simply hiding from people, Draco. I understand the impulse to protect me, and like I said, I’m flattered and honored by it. But I can’t just let my enemies control my life. Or my friends, either. This is the way that I want to live. Fearlessly.”  
  
“You told me that you did feel fear, that you weren’t always charging headlong into things because of your courage--”  
  
“Yes,” Harry acknowledged. He wondered where the admissions were going to end. “But I want to live as though I’m a normal person, and this is the best way to go about it.”  
  
“You’re not a normal person,” said Draco, and his eyes and voice were both vicious in a way that shocked Harry. He would have drawn back, actually, but Draco held him and kept him there. “Normal people don’t forgive their enemies and move on with their lives and deny that a war hurt them.”  
  
“I’m not as badly off as my friends!”  
  
“That doesn’t mean you don’t hurt.” Draco again tightened his hold. “Don’t think that we’re not going to have that out someday, how much you got hurt because of the war. We _are._ But I want to talk about this right now. You’re denying the danger to your life, because? It’s not as though your friends are urging you to get out there and go on living the way you want to!”  
  
Harry shut his eyes. He wanted to retreat, he thought. He wanted George’s company. Except when it came to his friendship with Draco, George didn’t ask him uncomfortable questions. He just sometimes asked Harry to help him and hold him and talk to him about Fred and listen to him, and Harry could do that.  
  
This time, he didn’t know what the right answer was. He didn’t know how he could help.  
  
“Listen, Draco,” he said, as soothingly as he could. “I promise that I’m going to be careful when I’m out. I can’t promise more than that, can I?”  
  
“You can promise to stay where you’re safe,” Draco said again, and his hands had tightened to the point that Harry winced. Draco immediately loosened the hold again, but his demanding, irritating, delighting presence was still there when Harry opened his eyes.  
  
“I can’t agree to that,” Harry said. “What happens if Ron or one of the other Aurors gets hurt in the field and they need me to act as bait?”  
  
“You’re bait already for the Risen Cobras, just all by yourself,” Draco muttered, and then his expression sharpened. “Wait. You want to be ready in case they need you, but you don’t intend to accompany Weasley on every mission he makes in search of them?”  
  
“No,” Harry said slowly, wondering how Draco had thought he’d been implying _that_. “Ron’s trained, he can do the ordinary fact-finding and tracking better than I can. But I have some specialized battle skills that he doesn’t. And I’d always want to be there to protect his back.”  
  
“Then,” Draco said, with the air of someone pulling out a trump card, “why can’t you stay behind the wards _until_ they need you, and come out and go to Weasley then?”  
  
Harry folded his arms, feeling perversely as though Draco had manhandled him into a corner, even though he knew Draco would probably point out that he’d simply been taking advantage of what Harry had handed him. “Because I have a shop to run. And other friends to see. And you to protect.”  
  
“You can protect me and Scorpius best if you’re in the same house with us, and not elsewhere. And I know that you work in the shop as a companion to Weasley’s brother, not because it’s a job you need to survive.”  
  
“Hermione wouldn’t want to visit here.”  
  
“I have no objections about you going from one warded house to another,” Draco responded instantly. “Not that I think Weasley’s house is as strongly guarded as the Manor, but I know that your friends wouldn’t play with your safety. I trust them to have adequate protection.”  
  
Harry stared at him. “You can’t just—just sneak around all my objections with your sneaky Slytherin ways.”  
  
“Your intellect is deserting you when you start repeating yourself, that I _have_ noticed.”  
  
“Stop it,” said Harry, roughly enough that Draco blinked and shut up. “I knew when I started this conversation what I wanted and what was a good idea. And then you came in and twisted it _all up_.” He pulled back from Draco and paced around the library until he came to the table where he’d been reading about blood crystals. He turned the pages of the book with one hand, but he wasn’t reading it. Draco watched him quietly.  
  
“I know what I should do,” Harry said. “I’ve _always_ known that. Protect and nurture and help my friends.”  
  
“We’ve talked before about you expanding the circle of your friends, and why that’s not a bad thing.”  
  
“Shut up, I’m rambling.”  
  
A small smile crossed Draco’s face, but he didn’t speak again, instead looking at Harry with an attentive expression that made Harry sigh and turn away. He already knew how this conversation would turn out, he admitted, but he needed to say it for himself.  
  
“I knew that, and then you and Scorpius dropped into my life and I had other things I wanted to do.” Harry clenched his hands. “But if I wouldn’t agree to stay behind wards all the time for my friends, why should I do it for you?”  
  
“Because I’m the only one who’s going to ask you and come up with arguments that you can’t talk your way around.”  
  
Harry closed his eyes. “I’m the only one who can actually convince myself, you know. Even if you talk and talk and talk at me, I’m the one who has to make the final decision.”  
  
“I know that,” said Draco, and waited some more.  
  
Harry sighed. Part of him _wanted_ to stay behind the wards. He _wanted_ to know he was protected, that his magic was safe, that it couldn’t be turned against him. He was tired of battle with the Risen Cobras, and he wanted to know that someone cared enough about him to want him safe.  
  
But that part of him was weak and selfish. What happened if one of his friends got hurt because he was hiding?  
  
He turned around to deliver that argument to Draco, and found him already there, eyes bright with compassion.  
  
“You can go if you need to,” Draco said. “And it’s not selfish to want to stay here, any more than it’s selfish to want people in your life besides the Weasleys, or get tired of their problems sometimes. I won’t hold you back if you really need to go. I’m only trying to talk you out of taking foolish risks.”  
  
Harry wanted to stay that Draco’s definition of foolish and his didn’t actually match, but he was too occupied with something else. “Were you in my head? Using Legilimency?”  
  
Draco gave him an innocent look.  
  
“ _Were_ you?”  
  
Draco snickered. “You ought to see your face.” Then his smile vanished, and he leaned gently into Harry, holding his gaze. “No. I just know the way you think. I’ve seen the way you stare at me as though you can’t believe that I care enough about you to prevent you from doing things like Flooing St. Mungo’s when that curse was still on your hands. I think you do want someone to shelter you and help you sometimes, but for understandable reasons, you haven’t had that in a long, long time. I’m here to make sure that, sometimes, it _is_ about you. That’s all.”  
  
“And about you, too,” Harry muttered, but he knew Draco had won and he couldn’t even resent it.  
  
“I’m sure that I’ll find a way to help you make it up to me for my endless exertions,” Draco said, with an extremely satisfied look, as he slid his arms into place around Harry. “Somehow.”


	24. A Slender Key

"So that's the plan for right now," Harry told the fireplace, or more precisely, Hermione's head in the flames. "I'll stay behind the wards at Malfoy Manor, but of course I'll come over to visit you lot pretty often, and I'll venture out if the Aurors need me to fight the Risen Cobras."

"Or act as bait for them, right?"

Harry actually relaxed. It had been a long, long time since he had heard that particular bossy tone in Hermione's voice, the one that indicated she was worried about something he hadn't done yet. "Well, yes. I think Draco might come with me if I do that, though. Just to make sure nothing goes wrong."

"Of course that's the only reason," Hermione said, and went on with a sort of withering note in her voice when Harry opened his mouth. "How long are you going to maintain this pretense that you're living with him and trading jewelry with him but not dating him?"

"We never intended to maintain a pretense that we weren't dating," said Harry, and bounced one knee, picking at the chain around his neck that held the key Draco had presented him with. It hadn't taken long for that to become a habit

"But you act like he's just a friend you're staying with," said Hermione. Harry grimaced a little; he  _hadn't_ missed the way she would accuse him of something. "You're dating him, right?"

Harry shrugged. "Dating, courting, it's hard to tell exactly what this means." He toyed with the chain again.

"What's that?" Hermione craned her neck. She had firecalled him and was kneeling down, and she couldn't see much from the angle she was sitting at. "Did he give you another gift that you're going to pretend is neutral?"

Harry rolled his eyes and took the key out. He supposed that the only way to get information about it without looking in more books of pure-blood customs was to ask Hermione, anyway. "This. He said it was a sort of key to the Manor and an invitation for sanctuary, but it isn't magical. It just  _is_."

" _Harry_ ," said Hermione, but this time she didn't sound as if she was blaming him. She was staring at the key instead, and her eyes were wide and her hand was a fist she'd raised to her mouth. "Do you know what that  _means_?"

"Sanctuary, like I just told you. "And then there were the times that Harry wasn't above baiting his best friends.

Hermione ignored his words utterly, looking at the key like someone in a dream. "Those keys can be made of different materials," she whispered. "Jewels signal that the person giving it to you is ready for any sort of friendship. The number of jewels on the key and the depth of their color signal what kind of friendship it is."

"Well, this key is just silver," said Harry, in case she might have missed it. He was a little relieved that Draco hadn't given him one with jewels on it. Harry thought they were doing just fine in their relationship as it was.

"And then there's the chain the key is on," Hermione continued, as if she hadn't heard him. "Is that chain made of silver or gold? It's hard to tell through the fireplace." One of her hands made a little snatching motion, and Harry had to grin again. He was certain she wanted to be in the same room so she could grab the key and examine it for herself.

"It's hard to tell," Harry said. "I think gold, but the links are small and fine." He looked at Hermione, waiting for her to tell him about the size of the links. She only bit her lip, though, studied the key one more time, and then continued.

"Gold is the least valuable material, but silver in the key indicates someone who's valued…I don't know, Harry. I really expected to see some kind of jewels. That would fit with the way that Malfoy is pursuing you." From the little grimace she gave, she didn't think much of that, but she was resigned. "I don't know what else to tell you. That key doesn't have a familiar shape or any jewels on it at all."

Harry considered, then decided one more detail couldn't do much harm. "He gave it to me in a box made of cedar wood, with a lid that flipped back."

Hermione gasped, raising her eyes to his. "You're sure it was cedar?"

"Positive. I could smell it."

"Wow, Harry," said Hermione, and this was in a small voice he had never heard before. Harry decided she was probably impressed. "Then there's no doubt that he values you, and that makes the silver material of the key make sense. And even the golden chain and the lack of jewels," she added, smiling suddenly. "He values you so much that he doesn't need to show it through a special chain or jewels. Those would just be superfluous."

"That's fabulous, Hermione." Harry leaned forwards a little. "Will you tell me  _what the fuck the cedar box means?_ "

Hermione gave him a mock-scolding glance, but didn't say anything about his language, probably because she knew he would combust if he had to wait any longer. "Cedar means that the person you give it to perfumes your life."

Harry slumped back against his chair. Once again, it was a way of speaking about his experience in pure-blood metaphors that didn't correspond to anything he understood. "Great. What does  _that_ mean?"

"That you make his life sweeter," said Hermione, and her smile was tender this time. It was the happiest Harry had seen her look about Draco since he had told his friends that they were court-dating, or whatever they should call it. "That he values you more than gold or silver. Cedar was traditionally precious in a way that doesn't have much to do with what it cost. That you're the most valuable to him."

"I can't be," said Harry. "He has a son."

"And I have a daughter, but that doesn't mean I value you or Ron any less." Hermione stretched out an insistent hand, once again seemed to realize she was on the other side of flames, and pulled it back with a sigh. "There's different kinds of love and different kinds of bonds. You ought to know that."

Harry turned away from the fire for a second, and thought. Then he turned back. It would take him hours to find the answer in books, so he might as well ask Hermione. "And what kind of response is appropriate to the key?"

"It depends on what he's inviting you inside," Hermione said promptly. "Ordinarily, you would accept the key with thanks and maybe a key to your own house. But the cedar box changes things. Do you think he's really only inviting you to stay in his home as long as you like? Is that all?"

Harry thought about it, and sighed. "No." It was the key to Draco's heart, he was sure. He didn't want to say it aloud because it sounded so—sappy, but that was the truth.

Hermione nodded. She probably knew what he meant, but she wasn't going to make him say it. "Then you need to give him a box that's made of cedar, or some other sweet-smelling wood. And come up with something that's not a key, but symbolizes something important to you."

Harry hesitated. "It can't be a key?" That would be so convenient, and useful, too, since he did want to go back to his house after this scare was over, and then Draco could have a key to the front door.

"No," said Hermione firmly. "This shows that you've put some original thought into the gift. At the same time, the symbol needs to be something connected to you."

And then Harry thought of it, and he grinned. It was kind of silly, but, well, lots of the pure-blood customs struck him that way. "Got it. Thanks, Hermione."

"What are you going to do for him in return?" Hermione promptly demanded, craning her neck. Perhaps she thought the idea was written on Harry's face.

There were times it might as well have been, Harry acknowledged, but this time he only winked at Hermione and shook his head. "You'll hear about it. Or maybe even see it." If doubt seized him, he would want to show the gift to his friends before he gave it to Draco.

"Well, technically, I'm not supposed to," Hermione admitted, and dropped her gaze, her cheeks flushing a little as Harry stared at her.

"Then why did you ask?"

" _Hearing_ it described isn't the same as seeing it," Hermione said, and waved an irritated hand at him when Harry opened his mouth. "You know very well what I mean, Harry James Potter. I only wanted to hear because it's interesting and it's not a life like I live."

"You little rule-breaker, Hermione."

" _Harry!_ "

She sounded so utterly scandalized that Harry burst out laughing, and that destroyed the illusion of seriousness he wanted to maintain. He and Hermione spent the rest of the firecall debating whether she should have asked to see the gift he was going to give Draco at all, with Hermione adamantly defending herself and Harry insisting she should have told him everything right away and then shut the Floo connection down to keep herself away from temptation.

It was the most fun conversation he'd had with Hermione in a long time.

* * *

"What is this?"

Harry smiled down at his plate. He wasn't looking at Draco, pretending to be entirely immersed in repairing Golden's wing. Scorpius had played too hard with the toy bird, and its wings had fallen off. Since they couldn't go to George's shop and wouldn't be able to again for a while, Harry was doing the best he could with minor fixing spells.

"There," he said, as he sat back and studied Golden for a second. Then he nodded and handed the bird to Scorpius. "See how he flies."

Scorpius tossed the bird in the air, and whooped as it began to fly around the room. "Look, Daddy!" he shouted, and rushed after it, his hands up to catch it in case Golden fell again. Harry watched him indulgently. He thought a kid who showed that much compassion to a toy at this age would probably grow up to be a pretty good person.

"I'm looking, Scorpius," said Draco, but his voice was deep and rough, and the next second, Harry heard the sound of the little cedar box he had put by Draco's plate shifting. He stopped pretending to pay attention only to Scorpius and Golden, and turned around to observe.

Draco was cradling the box next to his cheek, head bowed as if he was listening for sounds from inside it. He flushed when he saw Harry watching him, and put the box back down near his plate with a little clink.

"You can open it whenever you want," Harry told him steadily. "I'm  _particularly_  confident about what's inside it." And he winked at Draco, who looked both scandalized and delighted.

"I know that," said Draco. "But I want to wait until we don't have an audience." He tilted his head at Scorpius. "Are you going to bring Golden back to the table, or are you going to just run around and shriek while we're trying to have dinner?"

Harry wouldn't have used the word "shriek," but it seemed to work the way he suspected Draco meant it to. Scorpius leaped into the air, scooped up Golden as it swooped, and trotted back to the table, muttering, "I didn't mean to shriek, Daddy."

"Forgiven," said Draco, with a quick little smile, and he began to entertain Scorpius. Harry joined in. It was easy. Scorpius was the sort of child who was most pleased by attention from adults, and he told them about the latest game he and Teddy had come up with, his determination to go over and visit Teddy tomorrow, and the toys he thought he could build with magic throughout the meal.

Draco kept looking at the box and then at Harry with hot eyes whenever Scorpius concentrated on his food. Harry was starting to hope that Draco wouldn't be pained when he found out that the box didn't have a sex toy in it. That was sort of what he seemed to be hoping for.

Scorpius finally said, "Daddy, why can't I go to the wizarding primary school like Teddy does?'

Draco blinked, and Harry thought he fully focused his attention for the first time since he'd started talking with Scorpius. "Because you're too young. You can start going next year, when you're six."

"Oh." Scorpius paused to inhale a bit of the pudding a house-elf had put in front of him. "But Teddy says some five-year-olds are there."

Draco sat back with a complex expression on his face. He seemed to be hesitating between a lie and the truth, but Harry caught his eye and nodded firmly. He was a big fan of telling children the truth the minute you thought they could handle it.

_Or even before._ He certainly wished Dumbledore had told him certain things about the prophecy and Voldemort before he had done so.

"There are some people who will dislike you because of your last name," Draco began carefully. "You remember that I had that discussion with you a few times?"

"I remember," said Scorpius. "But they won't be at the primary school."

Draco shot Harry a faint helpless look. Harry didn't think it had anything to do with not being able to answer Scorpius's questions, but rather not being sure how much was appropriate to tell a child. Harry took over as smoothly as he could. "It's sort of like the people who are hunting me now, Scorpius. The ones who make me have to stay behind the wards?"

"Yeah," said Scorpius, and pouted at him. He had been upset that Harry couldn't join him and Teddy on a walk they wanted to take the other day.

"Those people aren't the ones I fought in the war," said Harry. "They're like those people, but not the same. And the kids in the primary school are connected to people who dislike you for your last name, but not the same."

There was a long pause while Scorpius thought that over. Then he said, "But I can go next year?"

"Yes," Draco said, his voice rich and relaxed in the way that it normally was when he put so much good humor into it. "You can go next year."

"Good," said Scorpius, and went back to eating his dinner. Draco ate as well, controlling his impatience, although Harry saw him eyeing the cedar wood box more than once.

Harry grinned, and ate his own meal with, he thought, no sign of any unbecoming emotion whatsoever.

* * *

"Never have I been so anxious for my son to go to sleep."

Harry leaned back in his chair and put his feet on the table as a test while Draco reached for the cedar wood box. Sure enough, Draco was too involved in the box and seeing what was in it to even snap at Harry to put his feet down, although most of the time he would have done that immediately.

He thought Draco almost stopped breathing when he opened the box and beheld the slender chain inside. Harry had deliberately had one made in silver (and luckily, that hadn't been a difficult thing to explain by owl-order, although the next part had been). Draco lifted the chain out, and let the pendant on it spin into the light.

It was made of black wood, and Draco stared at it. Harry nodded to him when he reached out to touch the lightning bolt shape.

"Thank you, Harry," said Draco, although he sounded a bit mystified. "I hadn't realized that you still thought so much about your scar…"

His voice trailed off, because he had touched the center of the pendant and discovered that it was made of two hinged pieces of wood, each one a half of the jagged bolt shape. He shot a keen glance at Harry, who nodded again. Really, he thought, Draco was worse than Scorpius, who at least never needed encouragement to rip into a present.

Draco folded the hinged pieces back as delicately as butterfly wings. He obviously hadn't noticed that the chain could flex in a way that would make both the doors open on their own, Harry thought. Oh, well. He had time to notice that, and Harry, time to tell him.

Beneath the pendant was a small mirror. Harry hadn't been sure what to tell the shop that he'd ordered the pendant from about materials, and in the end had gone with simple glass and a frame made of the same black wood as the pendant itself. If there was something wrong with that, he thought Draco would put it down to Harry's general ignorance of pure-blood customs.

It didn't take Draco long to grasp what Harry valued, staring down at his own face framed by the wings of the folded-back lightning bolt. He blinked back what looked like tears and glanced across the table at Harry.

"I don't necessarily know all the customs," Harry said very softly, and reached out to take his hand. Draco let him take it without moving the hand that held the pendant aloft. "But I can tell you that I love you, very much. And I hope this is acceptable."

Draco shook his head, but not in a way that worried Harry. He swallowed and said, "I want to ask you for something. And it's something there's no gift or traditional words for. I just want to ask you."

"Sounds serious," Harry said teasingly, but subsided when Draco glanced at him imploringly.

"I want, I need," said Draco, and then stopped, although to Harry that had sounded like a sentence that didn't need an interruption. Then he put down the pendant and said, "I want you to be with me tonight. Please."

Harry swallowed. "I take it you don't mean for sleeping."

"Not sleeping as in lying beside each other with arms wrapped around each other's bodies and only sleeping," said Draco. "No."

Harry hesitated once more. He hadn't been with a man. His last relationship was five years ago. He still wondered what the public was going to say, and George, when they found out about this for certain.

But he had crossed a major threshold when he'd ordered that particular pendant and box, and he knew it.

"Yes," he said, and came around the table to draw Draco to his feet and catch Draco's lips under his own.

 


	25. A Love Match

Draco climbed the stairs ahead of him. Harry thought about saying that he knew where Draco’s rooms were and didn’t need a guide, but he knew it was the sort of thing that would come out wrong no matter how humorous it was. He followed silently, instead.  
  
And he couldn’t cool either the anticipation or the nervousness squirming in his gut. His breath was coming in pants, his hands clenched. He did his best to relax them, open them. He didn’t want Draco to look back at him and think that Harry was terrified of having sex with him.  
  
Even if it was partially true.  
  
They halted at the top of the stairs, and Draco lifted his head with a misty smile and kissed Harry. Harry took some refuge and relief in that kiss, something he’d done before, something he knew how to do. And he felt his veins fill with heat when he rocked against Draco and found Draco hard and waiting for him, made him gasp and his mouth open until Harry wanted to do nothing but fill it with his tongue.  
  
“Yes, and yes again,” Draco whispered, pulling away, his eyes hard and fastened on Harry.  
  
Harry inclined his head and followed Draco down the corridor to his bedroom. He knew something else from that kiss: he wasn’t the only one who was nervous.  
  
*  
  
Draco stood in the middle of his bedroom and looked around as though he had no idea what to do next. Harry nodded, because it was up to him to decide if Draco was going to be docile, and took Draco by the shoulders to push him towards the bed.  
  
Docility was evidently the last thing on Draco’s mind. He braced his heels and shoved back against Harry, one of his hands stealing down to cup Harry’s erection.  
  
Harry gasped. Incredibly, his mind had been on other things than his own physical reaction up until that point, like how he was going to ease Draco out of his clothes without making him self-consciousness. But now, he wondered how he could have missed out on this wonderful source of pleasure, and he pushed forwards and ground against Draco’s palm.  
  
Draco let his head fall back and his own deep laugh work its way out of his throat. “ _Yes_ ,” he said. “Oh, yes.”  
  
Harry twisted his head back to kiss him, and pushed him onto the bed. The only problem  _that_ caused was Draco nearly pulling Harry with him by the cock. Harry laughed and gasped, or some mixture between the two sounds that really couldn’t be too much concerned with dignity, and followed Draco down, finding his lips again.  
  
Draco squirmed underneath him and lifted his hands to capture Harry’s hair in two tight fists. No one had ever done this for Harry before, held his head and directed him where to go and where to thrust his tongue, but he discovered he liked it. And it helped him to forget the ringing shock of impact that was hitting Draco’s hips with his own.  
  
And Draco’s cock with his cock. Harry decided to try something, and thrust there, too. Draco’s face went pale.  
  
“You’re all right?” Harry asked cautiously, sitting up. Merlin, now he was afraid that he’d  _hurt_ Draco.  
  
“I never realized it would feel like that,” Draco whispered, and redness replaced the whiteness. He stared at Harry in utter silence, and then said, “I’m going to have to do all the work around here, aren’t I?” His arm around the back of Harry’s neck was a surprise, his strong tug onto the bed even more so.  
  
Harry rode the motion, though, and soon took over the way that he thought Draco wanted, filling Draco’s mouth with his tongue and the gap between Draco’s legs with his hand. Draco tilted his head back and mouthed at the air, silent except for the soft murmur of sound that worked its way out between his lips. Harry knew something was wrong if Draco could make  _any_ noise, though, and he pushed his tongue more insistently in.  
  
“The point is not to choke me,” Draco said, pulling his head back and giving Harry a slight glare that was even more effective from the distance that separated them.  
  
Harry tore his hand through his fringe and muttered, “Right. Right.” His heart was banging so painfully that he wanted to start kissing Draco again just so he could think about something else. “But I’m doing okay so far?”  
  
“Of all the lovers I’ve ever had who worried about things like that in the middle of the lovemaking,” Draco said solemnly, “you’re the best.”  
  
“And you’re a prat,” Harry muttered, but he felt cheerful despite himself. “I’m ignorant of the way you like to make love the same way I am of pure-blood customs, all right?”  
  
“But unlike the customs, you don’t need to learn  _this_ from a book,” Draco said, and reached up, sliding one hand down Harry’s cheek. “You can let me teach you a bit of what I like to do. If you’d rather.”  
  
Harry smiled a little. “That might be interesting. Show me.” He lounged on his elbow, and found that his nervousness was gone entirely when Draco leaned over and gently kissed him.  
  
Draco took one of Harry’s hands and guided it to the back of his neck, murmuring quiet encouragement that Harry relaxed into with a sigh. Draco rubbed Harry’s hand back and forth, then paused. Harry took it over himself, and knew he was doing it right when Draco had trouble keeping his eyes open, tilting his head back with tiny, breathless grunts escaping him.  
  
“This feels so good when you do it,” Draco said, and smiled at him.  
  
Harry kissed him again, and kept up the stroking while he reached up to the top of Draco’s robes. Draco tensed once as though he was going to flinch, and then nodded and bowed his head, stretching his arms out so Harry could draw off the robes more easily.  
  
Harry pulled them over Draco’s head, and smiled at the way Draco tried to rub his disordered hair flat. “I don’t think that’s going to work.”  
  
“Fuck, you’re probably right,” Draco said, and caught Harry’s eye. “What?”  
  
“I just...liked the way you said ‘Fuck,’” Harry said, and leaned in to kiss him again. For the moment, the simple way Draco had spoken that word affected him more than the sight of Draco’s body, naked now except for his pants.  
  
But he looked down, of course, and swallowed at the sight of Draco’s cock standing out, straining, against his pants.  
  
Draco caught his gaze, and looked a little pained. “Too much for you?”  
  
“No,” said Harry. “I just don’t know what I want to do first.” It had seemed so simple with Ginny, two people finding each other out, and Daphne had always guided Harry to her desires with a minimum of fuss and hand gestures. But he hadn’t the slightest idea about what he should do with another man’s cock.  
  
Then he thought about what  _he_ liked, and felt the stirring in his own pants creeping up his body.  _There’s at least a few things you can imagine._    
  
“That’s a promising sign,” Draco said, breathy, as Harry rolled his hand over Draco’s cock, paying particular attention to how it felt against his knuckles.  
  
“Sometimes, you talk too much.” Harry smiled into his eyes. “You said that you were going to show me what you liked, so  _show_ me.”  
  
Draco raised his eyebrows, a second before a slow smile crept across his face. He scooted back across the bed, mouth ostentatiously closed, and settled himself against the pillows. There, he spread his legs and began slowly to slide his pants off.  
  
Harry decided that perhaps Draco had found a way to cause trouble even with his simple request. For a man who had invited Harry into such a bewildering and beautiful world of pure-blood customs that Harry was never sure where he should step, that made sense.  
  
Draco slid his pants down so slowly that Harry kept blinking, sure he would have them off any second now, only to find the stripping still in progress. And he did it without moving his legs, and moving his arse in such small, graceful directions that Harry wasn’t sure he saw them at all. He only knew that at the end, Draco’s pants were down around his ankles and he kicked them off with a fluid motion Harry actually did see, and then reached for his cock.  
  
And then Harry discovered the secondary meaning of “show” that he really should have thought about before now.  
  
Draco’s hand on his cock was as slow as the rest of him, at first, or at least as slow as the motion he had used to gets his pants off his ankles. His cock was pink, and his hand was paler, and he stroked with a motion that made his chest shudder a little with his breath. His eyes on Harry were paler still, although Harry thought the smug light in them was pretty deep.  
  
Draco, it turned out, favored a long, slow stroke with his hand that ended with a sharp motion up at the end. As he kept stroking, he flushed more, and his mouth began to slowly open. Harry found himself leaning forwards as if all the secrets of the universe were about to spill off Draco’s tongue.  
  
He also thought for a moment that Draco was gasping, although he didn’t know how without him being able to see it. Then he heard it more clearly, and the noises were his own.   
  
Draco smiled at him, a soft expression, his blush creeping around his cheeks and his eyelashes drooping as if he wanted to shield his eyes. A second later, he was gasping himself. Maybe he’d been holding back the sounds until now, waiting for Harry to let them out.  
  
And a second later, Harry decided it didn’t fucking  _matter._ What mattered was the sheer glory of the look in Draco’s eyes, the hunger in his face, the way that his hand, when he finally stopped stroking himself and held it out,  _dripped_.   
  
Harry crawled in, so drawn that for a second he didn’t understand what was happening when something caught under his knee and kept him from moving. Then he looked down and realized he was still wearing his own robes.  
  
He tore them off so fast that he burned his neck, and never mind Draco’s small chuckle. He knew where he needed to be, for right now.  
  
He didn’t bother about his pants, knowing they could come off later. Instead, he replaced Draco’s hand with his, firmly, and began the same stroking that Draco had, speeding it up while Draco stared at him.  
  
“You’re something else,” Draco whispered.  
  
“Not something other than your lover, I hope,” said Harry, which was probably horribly soppy and something Draco would never let him forget that he’d said, but he didn’t care. He was here in the moment,  _involved._ The warmth was rising around him, and his hand was full, and his mouth was full of water when he licked his lips, and he leaned in and kissed Draco again in a manner that Draco returned ferociously.  
  
Then Draco caught his wrist and murmured, “Slow down. I’m getting a little sensitive.”  
  
Harry held his breath for a second, but Draco still smiled at him, eyes glowing, and he knew that he wasn’t being criticized. He nodded and obediently slowed his wrist, and Draco sighed and tossed his head back languidly, one hand on Harry’s shoulder as if he needed support.  
  
 _He should, by the time I’m through with him._  
  
Harry was smiling so hard that it hurt his lips. He leaned in and kissed Draco again, although he wasn’t sure how much of it Draco felt. His eyelids were fluttering now and he was gasping, his free hand making random catching motions. Harry pictured him on a broom with an invisible Snitch dancing around him. He nearly snickered.  
  
But then he looked down, and felt himself overwhelmed again by the sight of his hand on Draco, and any impulse to laugh left him.  
  
Draco was entirely flushed below the waist now, and even the muscles of his thighs were fluttering almost in rhythm with his eyelids. He panted; the sound was butterfly-gentle against Harry’s ears. Harry smelled a sharp scent of salt rising up from him, salt and sweat and exertion, and Draco’s hand on his shoulder tightened.  
  
Harry thought he knew what that meant. He kissed Draco behind the ear and added that little motion near the head that Draco had liked when he practiced it on himself.  
  
Draco came with a soft cry, both more quietly and more messily than Harry had suspected he would. Somehow, it never seemed as messy when he was on the other end. Harry wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do with his hand, so he put it on the bed to brace himself and leaned in for a kiss.  
  
Draco returned it so slowly at first that Harry didn’t think he knew who was doing it, his breath loud and strenuous now. Then he was kissing in earnest, and his hand was on Harry’s groin so abruptly that Harry jumped.  
  
Draco didn’t take his pants off, though. He slowly, teasingly, traced Harry through the cloth, and Harry bucked forwards with a hissing cry.  
  
“Yes, I thought so,” said Draco, which was nonsense as far as Harry was concerned because he didn’t know what Draco meant, and then he was urging Harry up onto his knees and reaching around behind his arse. Harry squirmed when Draco’s fingers dipped into his crack.  
  
“I know, too far tonight,” said Draco, and kissed him as he eased Harry’s pants down his hips. Now, of course, he wanted to take his time again, when Harry was more than hard enough to want it quicker. But Draco seemed to think that Harry needed guidance even in this, as he reached back and gently fondled Harry’s balls and his cock and…Harry’s head was spinning.  
  
“Yes,” said Draco again, and Harry was starting to wonder who he was having this invisible conversation with. He was going to be pissed if it wasn’t him.   
  
But Draco eased Harry back into the position he’d used earlier, against the pillows, and Harry caught a glimpse of his face then. He had to smile back, although Draco wasn’t smiling. His eyes were so wide, so bright, and his hands were gentle and solemn as he touched Harry.  
  
“You’ll have to tell me the way  _you_ like it,” Draco said, finally bringing Harry back to the real world after drifting in another one for a while. “Fast? Slow? Hard?” The word resulted in a teasing tug to Harry’s cock.  
  
“I could show you, the way you did me,” Harry offered, wiped his hand on the bed, and reached for himself.  
  
Draco caught his wrist and shook his head firmly. Harry blinked at him. Draco whispered, “This time, I want it this way. I want you to tell me. I want to hear your voice break, and I want you to come to the point where you can’t speak anymore.”  
  
Harry arched. “Keep talking like that and I’ll come before you can get your hands on me,” he muttered.  
  
“Maybe that’s what I want,” said Draco, and he began to stroke again. “You have to tell me. You must tell me.”  
  
His voice was commanding, nearly hypnotic, and Harry surrendered without thinking about it. “I like it slow at first. But speeding up when you get—near the tip.” Draco’s hand was already mimicking his words, and it was exhilarating. “You have to put some force into it. I’m not going to get off if someone teases me.”  
  
“I don’t plan to tease you,” Draco said, and leaned near to breathe on his cheek even as he started adding some force to the twist. “Someone who teases you isn’t going to satisfy you, and I  _will_.”  
  
“Yes, you will,” Harry agreed, forcing his eyes open. They’d fallen shut somehow. He was staring at Draco from a distance that basically filled his vision with color, and it was amazing.  
  
“Tell me what else you like.” Draco kept his hand going at the same pace, proving what he said about not wanting to tease Harry, but Harry was getting to the point where he wanted something else.  
  
“To touch myself on the arse—oh—“  
  
It usually took Harry some leaning and wriggling that broke the mood to reach around for himself, but of course Draco had two hands. And a look of absolute delight on his face, and heat.   
  
“And then you keep on pulling and touching until you come?” Draco moved his fingers on Harry’s arse, this time making Harry arch towards him instead of away. “Or do you do something else?”  
  
“Sometimes—sometimes I try as hard as I can to get a fingertip just a little way inside me—”  
  
Draco pushed with one hand, a gentle, devious smile on his face that Harry abruptly lost sight of as he slammed his eyes shut and arched  _onto_ instead of  _away_.  
  
There was so much warmth that he honestly didn’t know what made him come, Draco’s finger or hand. Draco was whispering into his ear, but Harry couldn’t hold onto the words, either. He was drifting back to the ground in a haze, his chest aching with how hard he breathed. And his groin hurt, too, and honestly, he thought he’d pulled a muscle in his back.  
  
“Do you know what, Harry?” Draco whispered to him.  
  
 _If he tells me there’s a bloody pure-blood custom for this, I’m going to bloody kill him,_ Harry thought, his mind tumbling around so lazily that he couldn’t speak. He did manage a grunt, though.  
  
“You look hot when you do that.”  
  
 _Thank Merlin, no customs,_ Harry thought, and then fulfilled a custom of his own by dropping off into a very sound sleep.


	26. A Revealing Moment

Harry stretched, and grunted a little when his arm hit something. He supposed that was one disadvantage of sharing a bed that he didn’t often hear remarked upon.  
  
When he turned his head and met Draco’s heated gaze, though, he supposed that he could come to think of it as an advantage instead.  
  
“Good morning,” Draco said, and leaned over to kiss him. The kiss became hotter so quickly that Harry didn’t know where to put his hands for a second. He wanted, at one and the same time, to cradle Draco’s face and to reach out and stroke down his spine. He wanted to tease him and be teased himself.  
  
Before he could properly decide on what to do, a thump and shriek echoed down the corridor. Harry rolled away from Draco, twisting around without consciously knowing what he was doing. Then his wand was in his hand, and he wasn’t sure where it had come from, either. If he was in his own bed, it would have come from the side table.   
  
“Harry?”  
  
Draco whispered from beneath him, staring up. Harry realized he had turned so that he was crouching above Draco, still naked, caging Draco between his arms and legs. He shook his head and rose to his feet. It took a moment, but he still remembered the Auror training that let him ignore the fact he was naked.  
  
“Stay here,” he said, and Draco, who’d been starting to rise from the bed, froze. Harry couldn’t stick around to see if he got obeyed or not. He ran to the door, ripped it open, and sprinted down the corridor.  
  
The shriek repeated, but this time, Harry thought he recognized it as the noise of a certain child. He relaxed a little and took the time to add a glamour of clothes to his body, but he also cast a specifically modified Shield Charm on the end of his wand that bobbed like a soap bubble, ready to expand if he had to do that.  
  
“Scorpius?” Harry called.  
  
Scorpius sniffled, and then his tear-stained face emerged from around his bedroom door. His face was tragic.  
  
Harry relaxed and jogged over to him, managing to ignore how much he was bouncing underneath the glamour. He had more important things to worry about right now. “What happened? Are you okay?”  
  
“Yes,” said Scorpius, drawing out the word in a way that showed that particular conclusion could change at any moment. “But Golden…” He reached behind his back and brought out a small collection of pieces that he showed Harry. “He broke again. I don’t know if you can put him back.”  
  
Harry examined the golden wings and battered beak and body for a second, then regretfully shook his head. “I’m not the one who came up with the birds and the enchantment that made them fly. My partner George has to do that. Unless you want another bird?” That would be safer. He didn’t think George would have any problem sending him a spare toy bird by post, whatever his problems with the Malfoys in general.  
  
Scorpius snatched the pieces back and cradled them against his chest. “They wouldn’t be  _Golden_ ,” he said, and gave Harry a look of utter betrayal.  
  
Harry sighed and crouched down in front of Scorpius, pushing his hair back from his face. “All right. Then we’ll go to George’s shop and get him repaired.”  
  
“We will?”  
  
Harry turned his head. Draco had come out of his bedroom, a loose white robe wrapped around his waist. For a moment, Harry regretted that it wasn’t transparent, and then reminded himself where they were and whose kid they were in front of, and subjected his own brain to a severe scolding.  
  
“Yes,” said Harry. “I really can’t do this, and I would probably only hurt Golden more if I tried.” Scorpius turned further away, peering at Harry over his shoulder like a nervous parent. Harry firmly bit his lip so he wouldn’t laugh, and added, “Unless Scorpius is willing to wait a few days.”  
  
“You  _said_ ,” said Scorpius, and his lip wobbled.  
  
Draco looked at his son, and his face softened. But Harry could see a struggle beneath the surface, and waited patiently. He didn’t think Draco had succumbed completely yet.  
  
Sure enough, Draco looked at him and asked, “And he and I couldn’t go?”  
  
“I don’t know if George would even let you in if you went by yourselves,” Harry pointed out dryly. “And if someone attacked you, then you would be—”  
  
“I am not  _defenseless_ ,” said Draco, and his hand fell to his own wand, looped in the sleeve of his robe.  
  
“I know that,” said Harry, hoping he sounded soothing instead of skeptical. From the look Draco gave him, it hadn’t worked. Harry sighed and backtracked. “But you can’t protect yourself from enemies like this as well as someone with Auror training could.”  
  
Draco folded his arms, and in a second, Harry saw where Scorpius’s stubborn expression had come from. “You were the one who kept touting Weasley’s Auror training, and insisting that you didn’t have enough of your own to make much of a difference.”  
  
Harry held back the roll of his eyes that he instinctively wanted to give. It wouldn’t have helped with Ron or Hermione, and it  _definitely_ wouldn’t help with proud, touchy Malfoys. “Fine. I mean that I have  _some_ , as you saw just now.” After what was clearly an unwilling moment, Draco nodded, conceding the point. “And that’s better than none. These are dangerous enemies. They want to—”  
  
“Target you.  _We_ would be safer if we went alone.”  
  
“They want to target me, but they want to hurt me, not just kill me,” Harry pointed out softly. “What better way to do that than killing you and Scorpius, or my friends? Hermione goes to her job under armed guard, you know, and there are Hit Wizards watching the Burrow when she leaves Rose there. I could call the Ministry for an escort for you, and they’d do it, but you can’t just go alone.”  
  
Draco screwed his face up, but Scorpius, who didn’t look as though he had understood much, broke in. “We can go to the shop and repair Golden.”  
  
It was obvious what was most important to him—though Harry thought that was only because Draco had made sure that he didn’t have to grow up too fast and deal with the other consequences of the war before he was ready. He gave Scorpius a soft smile. “We can go.”  
  
“I’m going to eat breakfast and get dressed,” Scorpius announced, and vanished back into his room, still cradling the handful of broken parts that had been Golden.  
  
Harry crossed Draco’s gaze with his own, and raised his eyebrows. Draco shook his head. “You realize that he’s going to be insufferable until we go. And we have to go now. I’m not breaking a promise to my son.”  
  
“Even if I was the one who made it?”  
  
“Yes,” said Draco. “If you’re going to be…in his life, then we have to get used to him feeling that he can trust you and rely on your word.”  
  
Harry reached out and caught Draco’s hand. “If you were about to say that I was his other parent, then I would be honored to be considered so.”  
  
Draco’s face softened, and he leaned against Harry. And went on leaning. He had apparently tried to stop at the clothes that the glamour made Harry appear to be wearing. He gasped a little as he was suddenly leaning against Harry’s bare chest instead.  
  
Harry coughed at the look in Draco’s eyes. “Scorpius is getting ready, and we don’t have time,” he pointed out.  
  
Draco cast his son’s door a calculating glance, and then nodded. “You’re right. But we’ll think about this when we get back from Diagon Alley.” He let a hand trail down Harry’s hip, over what Harry was sure he knew was a sensitive spot marked with bruises, as he turned and sauntered back to his bedroom.  
  
If the sauntering was meant to make Harry’s eyes fasten on Draco’s arse and stay there, it definitely worked. Harry blinked, shook his head, and managed to get past the impulse to blither out something stupid.  
  
 _This having a lover thing is going to take some getting used to._  
  
*  
  
Harry had been prepared for some awkwardness when they walked into Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes, but not the bleak, bitter hatred in George’s eyes.  
  
“I told you I wouldn’t serve them,” George hissed, taking a step towards Harry. His hand was already rising, and Harry automatically checked it to make sure George didn’t have his wand in it. He didn’t. Harry relaxed, but only until he could reach over and tuck Scorpius behind him. “I told you that you shouldn’t bring them here. You agreed. And how long did it take you to break that promise? It just shows me who you  _really_ value.”  
  
He looked over Harry’s shoulder at Draco, and then spun around and started for the room in the back of the shop. Harry took a hasty step after him. If George went in there, it would be hours before he came out, and they needed his expertise.  
  
“George, wait!”  
  
“Why should I, when you’ve chosen your side?” George kept walking, and his hand was already on the doorknob.  
  
“The war is  _over!_ ” Harry barked, not even knowing those were the words he was going to speak next. “There’s no  _sides_ anymore! And we need your help to repair Scorpius’s bird, and I didn’t leave them outside in the alley because the Risen Cobras are fucking hunting me, and they wouldn’t be safe! Hell, I wouldn’t even be here if I could repair the damage by myself! I suppose I could go home and firecall you, but that would be stupid, when we’re here! Can you  _bloody grow up_  for once?”  
  
“Harry, Scorpius’s  _big ears_ ,” said Draco, but Harry didn’t care. George was turning around and staring at Harry in a way he’d never looked in all those years of Harry listening to him and helping him and holding him.  
  
“If you lost a twin, you would understand,” George whispered. “No one can understand except someone who lost a twin.”  
  
“Then I suppose I shouldn’t have tried to help you at all, since someone can only understand if they’ve lost a twin.” Harry chopped his hand down. “Here, let Draco and Scorpius go sit in the other room, and you help me with this bird.” He felt as though all his great sex with Draco had never happened—worn and tired and disgusted. “Here, fine, it’s ridiculous, but if you have to have them out of sight to be out of mind—”  
  
“I lost Fred.”  
  
“I know that,” said Harry, and closed his eyes. It felt like the same tired thing he had gone through with Ron and Hermione, all over again. He knew George was suffering. But there was a limit to how much he could help him with that suffering, or bear it, or be responsible for it. And he was nearing that limit pretty fast.   
  
“I  _lost_ him.”  
  
“I  _know_ that,” Harry said back, insistently, and turned to George. He knew Draco and Scorpius were standing very still behind him, but right now, he couldn’t help them. He had to have this out with George now if he was going to have it out at all. And he knew part of this was his fault because he had coddled George and let him get away with not going to a Mind-Healer and all the rest of it, but thinking about it that way wasn’t helpful, either. “What do you want me to do about it?”  
  
George caught his breath, his eyes fluttering with hurt. Harry nodded to him. “I know that it’s hard for you. I  _know_ that. But I really don’t know what else I can do to to help you or soothe you or reassure you that I’m your friend no matter who I date or live with.”  
  
Harry heard Draco make a slight coughing noise, but he didn’t turn around. He had to handle this with George on his own, he thought. Draco interfering now would only make things worse. Harry waited where he was, holding George’s eyes.  
  
George finally looked away, licked his lips, and murmured, “I don’t think that anyone can understand the full extent of my loss. That’s another reason I don’t want to go to a Mind-Healer.”  
  
“Fine,” said Harry. He thought he kept his voice calm and neutral this time. He gestured to Draco and Scorpius, and they edged past George, Draco keeping one hand on Scorpius’s shoulder. Harry was glad of that. He didn’t think George could stand Scorpius touching either him or anything in the shop right now.  
  
George waited until the door at the back of the shop clicked shut. Then he shivered and told Harry, “I’ve been marking time until I get to the point when I can let go and go back to Fred, and it won’t disappoint too many people.”  
  
Harry said nothing for a second. Then he murmured, “You’re only thirty. And you know how long wizards live.”  
  
“I’m resigned to the fact that it’s going to be a long time,” said George, with a snap in his voice that made Harry wonder if that was true. “But in the meantime, I can live the way that Fred would have wanted me to.” He turned his head, but didn’t face the room at the back of the shop before he snapped around again and said, “And part of that means no truce with the enemy.”  
  
Harry thought for a second. He supposed he could have argued that Fred would have wanted no such thing, but then George would just tell him again that he couldn’t understand what it was like to lose a twin, and Harry supposed that was true.  
  
In silence, he held out his hands, filled with the parts of Scorpius’s bird. George folded his arms and walked over to the far side of the shop.  
  
“You won’t even repair a toy for him?” Harry heard so many emotions in his own voice that he hadn’t heard there in years, and from the startled glance George gave him, so did he.  
  
But a second later, George’s face hardened. “No truce with the enemy.” He took a deep breath. “And as long as you’re dating him, then I have to ask you not to work in my shop. Or come here. Knowing that someone who actually  _likes a Malfoy_ is here…” He shivered. “You don’t understand what kind of dreams that would give me, the kind of dreams where Fred would disapprove of everything I do.”  
  
Harry curled his hands in silence around the parts of Golden. In silence he looked at George, and in silence he drew his wand and pointed it at the stand of golden birds and said, “ _Acclaro mystica_.”  
  
The stand vibrated, and the birds rose into the air and blurred around for a second. Then a series of letters began to unwind from them, floating in the air like small scrolls. Each incantation George had used to make the birds, to repair them and make them fly and ensure their wings flapped in time and everything else, was there.  
  
Harry knew it was chaos and he wouldn’t be able to sort them out clearly, but that didn’t matter so much. When he went home, he would ask Draco if he had a Pensieve, and then he would sort out the incantations and make sure he understood how they worked, and which ones would be necessary to fix Golden.  
  
“What are you doing?  _Stop!_ ”  
  
The spell was stopping anyway, which made Harry hope that George realized just how useless his cry was. The stand settled back into place, and the birds on top of it, although jumbled and in different places than before. Harry cast a Cushioning Charm to stop the ones that fell to the floor from breaking, and met George’s gaze. He was pale enough his freckles looked like a disease.  
  
“Where did you learn that spell?” George whispered.  
  
“Aurors,” said Harry easily. “When they absolutely need to know what Dark spells are cast on a place or object, they use it. Not often, mind. It’s very noticeable, and so it’s no use in places that they’re trying to sneak up on. But useful enough to remember.”  
  
“You could take down my shop like that. You could set up your own shop if you liked.”  
  
Harry opened his mouth, closed it, and ended up shaking his head. “I suppose I really  _am_ the enemy, if you think like that,” he murmured. “But I don’t want to, George. You said no truce with the enemy. Fine. But I made a promise to a little boy that I would repair his friend. I’ll know how to do it, now that you won’t.”  
  
“He’s a  _Malfoy_.”  
  
Harry had no idea whether George was talking about Draco or Scorpius, but frankly, it didn’t matter at this point. “And Malfoys didn’t kill Fred,” he said evenly. “No Malfoys were near him.”  
  
“They’re still Death Eaters! Free ones!”  
  
“You sound like the people who slaver in the paper about me even being friends with Draco,” said Harry. “One of them wasn’t  _born_ when your brother died. Maybe you want to extend the hatred down the generations just like your ancestors did, but Draco doesn’t, and we’ll stay away so you don’t worry about it.”  
  
“You’re a  _traitor_.”  
  
“I’m the enemy, you said it, and enemies don’t betray each other,” said Harry. His heart was heavy, but George had been the one to declare Harry had to leave, and the one who had said that Fred’s loss ten years ago was more important than anyone living. “Come on, Draco, Scorpius.”  
  
He remained ready to raise a Shield Charm in front of him if he had to while they came cautiously out of the room and across the shop, but George only stood and stared at him. Harry turned around when he was near the door, and nodded to Scorpius. “I’ll need a day or so to fix Golden, but I can do it, now.”  
  
Scorpius nodded back but didn’t say anything, maybe too overawed. Draco gave George a single clear look.  
  
“I pity him,” he said, when they were outside. “I pity anyone who drives you away from them.”  
  
Harry said nothing, but curled his fingers around Draco’s. 


	27. Family Talks

“There,” said Harry, and leaned back in the chair, holding out Golden to Scorpius. “Now he’s going to fly and act just like he always has.” He felt confident making that promise at last, where he wouldn’t have the day before. It had taken him this long to sort out his memories with the help of Draco’s Pensieve and make sure that he knew how to work all the spells.  
  
Scorpius took the bird with such solemnity that Harry had to look away, because otherwise he would start smiling and Scorpius would probably take that the wrong way. “Thank you, Mr. Potter,” he breathed, and stroked the back of the bird as though it would fly into pieces again if he touched it too hard.  
  
“You don’t have to call me Mr. Potter,” said Harry, and smiled at him. He saw Draco start to life across the table, where he had been reading the paper while Harry worked on Golden. Harry ignored that for the second, though. Scorpius’s shimmering, uplifted eyes were more than big enough to fill his world. “You can call me Harry.”  
  
Scorpius looked around as though someone was standing behind him ready to smack him on the head. “But calling an adult by their first name is disrespectful.”  
  
Harry could hear Draco’s voice behind that admonition, the paces and the pauses and the phrasing. He held back his snort, and held out a hand to Scorpius. “Only if they don’t ask you to call them by their names. I’m asking you. I think that I’m—I mean, I hope that I’m not a stranger anymore,” he added, because ultimately Scorpius was the one who would decide that.  
  
“Daddy?” Scorpius turned to Draco and held out one hand as though appealing for help.  
  
“Do what Harry says.” Draco’s voice was strangled. Harry glanced at him, but he had already vanished behind the paper again.  
  
“All right,” said Scorpius. He faced Harry again and beamed at him, then grabbed his hand and shook it. “It’s nice to meet you, Harry.”  
  
Harry bowed his head a little. “You, too, young Master Malfoy.”  
  
Scorpius frowned. “ _No_ ,” he said fiercely. “If you’re going to be my friend, you have to call me by my first name.”  
  
Harry choked back on laughter. He had known he would get a reaction like that if he tried to be formal, but he still enjoyed it. It was so perfectly Scorpius, and so amusing. “All right. I’ll try not to sound like a house-elf.”  
  
“ _No_ human should sound like a house-elf.” Scorpius gave him another stern look, and then turned around and fiddled with Golden for a second. Then Golden flew up and around his head, and Scorpius looked up with an adoring smile Harry could remember from when he got his first broom. “Golden will bite anyone who sounds like a house-elf.”  
  
“Unless they’re a house-elf,” said Harry gravely. He was going to lose it in a minute, really he was, but he would try not to laugh in front of Scorpius and make Scorpius think he was making fun of him.  
  
“Yes,” said Scorpius, in the contented tones of a child who was happy that the adults in his life understood him. He nodded to Harry and wandered off, his hand held out to Golden, which whirred down into his palm a minute later. Harry wondered idly if that was a trick all the birds could do, one Scorpius had managed, or one that Harry had added to the bird when he altered the magic.  
  
“I want to know if there was a period in your life when you did,” said Draco, laying the paper aside and listening to Harry’s snorts of laughter with an abstracted smile.  
  
“When I did what?” Harry picked up his cup of hot chocolate that the elves had brought him a while ago and warmed it with a touch of his wand. Then he sipped. He felt utterly content himself. Working on difficult and delicate magic gave him that feeling now, the feeling that he had once thought only working as an Auror would.  
  
“When you sounded like a house-elf.”  
  
Harry half-choked, and turned around to stare at Draco. Draco was leaning one elbow on the table, something he never did. Harry opened his mouth to say something about that, but Draco spoke before he could.  
  
“I’ve listened to little things you said and little things Weasley said, and put together hints.” Draco thinned his lips like someone who had to bite into a lemon choosing the right way to do it. “Your Muggle relatives didn’t treat you very well, did they?”  
  
Harry took a deep breath and exhaled through his mouth. “No,” he said finally. “I wouldn’t say that I was exactly like a house-elf, but I did a lot of chores and my cousin did  _nothing._ I didn’t know about magic. I didn’t—well, I didn’t get everything to eat that I wanted. Not enough.”  
  
“Say it,” said Draco. Harry’s hands had ended up in  _his_ hands without Harry noticing. Draco rubbed Harry’s fingers, his eyes glinting a hard challenge, as if he would pound Harry if he tried to flinch away from what Draco was saying. “They starved you.”  
  
“Yes and no,” said Harry, and sighed. It was hard to disentangle his feelings about the Dursleys from everything else he felt about his childhood. And everything seemed so  _changed_ now that he knew he was magical. He could look back and find explanations not only for the weird things that had happened to him but for the sense of distance and difference that he had had from other people.  
  
But how much of that had been real at the time, and how much was justification after the fact? How much, for that matter, of his new understanding of the Dursleys was after the fact? He knew he would have gone after them instantly if they’d gained custody of another magical child and started abusing that one, but it was hard to think about himself that way.  
  
“I don’t want to hear you make excuses for them.” Draco’s voice was soft enough that Harry wouldn’t have known how strongly he felt about it if not for Draco’s hand, clamped over his fingers like an iron claw. “I’m going to walk away if you start making excuses, and you _won’t_ be welcome in my room tonight.”  
  
Harry gave him a helpless smile and picked up Draco’s hand, briefly holding the back of it to his lips. “You’re not going to hear me make excuses,” he told Draco.  
  
“Really.” Draco tilted his head back and contrived to look at Harry from a long way above his nose.  
  
“Really.” Harry turned his head to the side. “At least, not any more than I made excuses for George yesterday. There’s a point when you do have to stop putting up with someone and decide that—well, that they’re going to adapt and give a little, because you’re done giving. Ron and Hermione are getting along with you well enough that Ron could come with you to guard me in that pub, and Hermione could joke with me about the courtship gifts. If George can’t manage it, tough shit.”  
  
Draco smiled, and for a moment, with his grip on Harry’s hand becoming caressing, Harry thought he might get distracted with more pleasant thoughts. But a second later, he shook his head and said, “And what does that have to do with your relatives?”  
  
“I struggled for a long time to make them love me,” said Harry. “I’ve given up on that now. I know that I could have got along with my cousin better if my aunt and uncle weren’t there poisoning the whole thing, but I didn’t.”  
  
“Good,” said Draco. “No excuses made for them. They had  _no_ right to mistreat you.”  
  
“That part, I never disputed,” said Harry, and leaned across the table to kiss him, and although it didn’t seem as if Draco wanted to drop the subject completely, Harry did manage to distract him into more pleasant thoughts.  
  
*  
  
Harry rolled out of bed and onto the floor with a thud, and then gasped, feeling as if there wasn’t enough air in his lungs. Next to him, or what had been next to him until a few seconds ago, Draco was gasping in a similar way.  
  
That at least eliminated Harry’s immediate fear, that the Risen Cobras might have come up with a way to get his magic-tortured blood into his body after all. That wouldn’t have affected Draco. He lit his wand with a thought and sat up, shaking his head. “Draco?”  
  
Draco caught his breath a second later, and whispered, “They’re beginning an assault on the wards.”  
  
Harry nodded. He supposed he should have thought of that himself, although he hadn’t thought he was close enough to the wards of Malfoy Manor to really be affected. “Then you get Scorpius. I’ll—”  
  
“Be Body-Bound if you so much as  _think_ of going out there alone.” Draco’s hand closed on his wrist, not even as gently as it had earlier in the day when they were discussing the Dursleys.  
  
Harry sighed and rolled his eyes. “Yes, Mother. I was going to say that I’ll Floo the Aurors and let them know the attackers are here. I know that Ron was going to set up alarm spells outside your wards, but I don’t know if they’ll pick up every single kind of Dark Arts the Risen Cobras might use.”  
  
As he talked, Harry was standing, shaking himself out and extending his free hand to Draco. Draco let Harry pull him out of bed, uncharacteristically quiet.  
  
“And then you’ll come with us to the part of the Manor where the Portkey took you?” Draco asked finally, tilting his head back so he could look at Harry. They caught their breaths again as another pounding hit shook the wards. “It’s the safest part.”  
  
Harry nodded. “I don’t want to fight them. I know that I can’t handle them all alone,” he added, when Draco pressed his eyebrows down as if he was thinking hard about it and whether he could trust Harry. “But I know that a Floo call from me will get through the Ministry hierarchy faster than one from you would.”  
  
Draco relaxed like flowing water as soon as he heard a reason that he, presumably, thought made sense. He trotted off to get Scorpius, and Harry snorted a little and rolled his eyes. Then he turned to the fireplace in Draco’s room.  
  
The fireplace hooked up to the Auror Department was right in the middle of the Night Duty office, those Aurors who remained on watch in the darkest hours just in case there was an emergency someone needed a lot of the Department to handle. Dawlish was there, and he jumped to his feet swearing when he saw Harry’s face in the fire. “Damn it, Potter, where are you? Weasley said that you were  _staying safe,_ but if you’re out of the wards and running around—”  
  
“I am behind the wards at Malfoy Manor,” Harry said simply. “The Risen Cobras are attacking, and they’re pounding hard enough to give me a headache. You’d better get over here.” He took some satisfaction in their gaping mouths as he cut the connection, and he knew they were gaping at him playing safe for once more than they were at the news of the attack.  
  
By the time he turned around, Draco was already back, cradling a sleepy Scorpius in his arms. Scorpius had Golden in one hand, of course, and a pillow in the other. As Harry watched, Scorpius arranged the pillow on his father’s shoulder, rested his cheek on it, and went to sleep, already so tousled that Harry’s heart ached to look at him.  
  
“Ready,” Draco whispered, and Harry came over and took his hand.  
  
*  
  
Harry leaned his head back against Draco’s, and took his hand. Draco was flinching as the pounding on the wards grew worse. He looked at Harry for a second, startled, when Harry took his hand, and then sighed and rolled towards him.  
  
They were on the same bed, in the same room, where Harry had first started his recovery from the curse the Risen Cobras had cast at him. Scorpius was sound asleep between them, still clutching his pillow. Harry had taken Golden away from him and put the bird on the table beside the bed, though. The last thing he wanted to do was roll over on it and then wake up and have to repair it  _again_.  
  
“How can you be so calm through this?” Draco whispered to him, curling harder around Harry and flinching again as a distant boom rolled through the Manor. At least, this far away from the outside wards and behind another layer of protection, neither he nor Harry got the breathless feeling that had woken them up.  
  
“I’ve been through worse situations,” said Harry softly, and bent down to drop a kiss on Draco’s forehead. “Besides, I’m not the only relaxed one here.”  
  
“The only relaxed  _adult_ ,” Draco stressed, and stared for a second at his sleeping son. “I love him, but he doesn’t know what will happen if the Risen Cobras break through the wards. He doesn’t understand, not really.”  
  
Harry made a soft soothing noise and tucked his arm around Draco, pulling him close. Draco’s elbow seemed to fit naturally into the hollow between Harry’s ribs, and Harry closed his eyes and let his head droop on Draco’s shoulder.   
  
“I’ll tell you a story,” Harry whispered. “Something you’ve been wanting to hear about, and something that might keep your mind off what’s happening outside.”  
  
Draco stiffened in his arms for a second, as though he thought Harry was making fun of him, but Harry ran a hand soothingly up and down his back, and Draco finally sighed and nodded. Harry felt the move more as Draco’s chin stirring the cloth against his chest than anything else.  
  
“Once there was a boy who lost his family,” Harry said. “He didn’t know that for a long time, of course. He thought he was growing up with his family. But then he realized they didn’t love him, and they put him in a cupboard every day. That wasn’t normal. Parents who loved their children didn’t do that.”  
  
For a second, Draco’s hand tightened and curled against Harry’s chest. But Harry kissed him again and whispered, “Hush, or you’ll wake up Scorpius.”  
  
Draco uttered a long, shuddering breath. Finally, his hand relaxed, and he nodded.  
  
“Good,” said Harry, and kissed him again. “Now, this boy didn’t have much hope of an escape. His cousin had friends at school who beat him up. He thought that the whole world didn’t like him. Sometimes strange things happened to him—like the time he found himself on top of the school when his cousin was chasing him—but those things just made his family upset. He didn’t think of them as miracles. He tried not to think of them at all.”  
  
“Harry,” Draco whispered, and cuddled closer, the arm around Harry’s waist pressing into him as if he could make up for all those years that Harry had spent in a cupboard with wooden walls embracing him instead.  
  
“He thought nothing would ever change,” Harry said. It was an effort to keep his voice level, but he managed, for the sake of Draco and the soft breathing shape of Scorpius between them. “But he hoped for it anyway. He thought about someone coming to rescue him. He thought of the scar on his forehead being linked to something wonderful and mysterious, instead of just strange and freakish.”  
  
Draco laid a cheek that felt feverish against his.  
  
“And then a giant came down from the sky and told him he was a wizard,” said Harry. He pulled both Draco and Scorpius so close that it was hard to tell whose hand he was touching. “He discovered that there was an escape. He was as special as he had always thought he was. There was someone there to rescue him.”  
  
Draco hugged him and shivered. Harry leaned forwards and rubbed his nose back and forth against Draco’s.  
  
“He turned out to be more special than he wanted to be,” Harry finished quietly. “But that’s how he leaned there’s always an escape. Like a ring with a Portkey on it. Even when you don’t think there is.”  
  
Draco lifted his head, asking with lips and eyes and face, and Harry bent down and kissed him. It was the sweetest kiss they had shared yet, and Draco anchored a hand in his hair and combed through it hard enough to bring tears to Harry’s eyes. But they were continuing to kiss, and that was the important thing.  
  
Then Harry realized something else, and lifted his head.  
  
The pounding had stopped, and the wards still held.


	28. Brought Down

“You’ve got everyone involved?” Harry asked the question from inside the Manor’s warded front doors. Draco had stood up without a word after that story and that kiss, started to walk away with Scorpius, and then bent down and kissed Harry once again, hard enough to wind him, with breathless appreciation of his own.   
  
Harry knew that he was now putting Scorpius back to bed, and that he would be safe and not come to the door. He preferred leaving Harry to deal with Aurors, anyway—a prejudice that Harry could entirely understand.  
  
“We think so.” Dawlish shook some dirt off his cloak and grinned up at Harry. There was a small, bleeding slash on his jaw, along his chin. But he didn’t appear to notice it, and Harry thought it would be impolite to call attention to it right now. “Sixteen of them, but all so focused on the attack that they never checked their backs.”  
  
Harry grinned back a little. “That was the impression I had of them. Clever in their way, but never paying enough attention to the larger context.”  
  
Dawlish nodded as if he liked the description, then glanced over his shoulder. “Right now, we don’t know that we’ve got them all, and we probably won’t know for a few days, until we’ve questioned the ones we captured. I have to ask that you stay under the wards for now.”  
  
Harry nodded and was about to respond, when red hair flashed by the Manor’s gates, and Ron charged forwards. “Mate!” Ron was breathless. “You’re all right?”  
  
Harry met Ron’s gaze and smiled. “Yes, thanks to you. I understand that you took three of them down all by yourself!” That was what Dawlish had said when he’d come up to the door, the very first thing he’d said.  
  
Even in the dim light of the  _Lumos_ Charms and the moon, Harry could see Ron’s proud blush. “Yeah, well…” Ron trailed off and then looked around as though someone was going to appear in order to contradict him. Then he shook his head and focused on Harry. “What happened in there?”  
  
“The first attack woke us up. So we got Scorpius, and Scorpius got his toy, and we went to the part of the Manor where Draco cared for me after I got hurt. It’s the most powerfully warded.”  
  
Harry thought Ron would grimace about the unsubtle implication that Harry and Draco slept in the same bed, but instead, he gaped. Harry blinked at him. “What?” he added, trying to think of what Ron could find in there to be surprised by.  
  
“You  _felt_ the attack? Or heard it?”  
  
“Felt it,” Harry conceded. “I mean, it was noisy, too. There was no way that I would have slept through it, or Draco either.”  
  
But Ron still refused to become upset about the most obvious thing. “If you felt it, then you’re wound into the wards of the Manor,” he muttered. “Do you know how rare that is, mate? Unless Malfoy connected you to them himself.”  
  
“Not that I know of,” said Harry, and glanced over his shoulder. Draco had come into the corridor, the way Harry had thought he’d heard him do. He met Harry’s eyes with a single raised brow, and shook his head slightly. Harry nodded and turned around. “No, he says he didn’t, and he really would tell the truth,” he added, seeing Ron’s slightly dropped jaw.  
  
“It’s not impossible,” said Dawlish, and he sounded more cheerful and more inclined to tell Harry what this was about. “It’s just unusual, that’s all!” He slapped Harry on the back. “Cheers to you for doing the most sensible thing, and we’re going to get this lot back to the Ministry now. Any time you need us, we’ll be here.” He nodded to Harry, even to Draco, and then turned and left.  
  
Ron met Harry’s eyes soberly, murmured, “I hope you know what you’re doing,” and then followed the other Aurors.  
  
Harry shut the door. Nobody said anything for a moment. Then Harry turned around and tried to raise a smile out of Draco by asking, “Did Scorpius even wake up when you put him back to bed?”  
  
“He did, enough to ask where Golden was.” Draco took a long step towards him. His eyes were huge and filled with a light more piercing than fire. “I’d left it back in the warded wing, so I had to Summon it.”  
  
Harry slapped his forehead. “I should have remembered to bring it. Sorry.”  
  
His voice sounded too high and startling, like a piece of glass dropped on the floor. Draco lifted a hand and showed the bracelet that Harry had bought him. “When you’re connected formally to the wards, it means you’re a recognized and expected guest,” he explained.  
  
Harry blinked. “And when you’re simply connected to them?” he asked. “When you wake up in the middle of the night and discover you’re connected to them?”  
  
Draco shook his bracelet again, but Harry maintained his steady stare, and the color mounted up into Draco’s cheeks. “It means,” he murmured, “that you really need to accept your status as a courted lover.”  
  
“And courting?” Harry asked. He knew he and Draco had been drifting into greater intimacy, but it was something new, to have the  _house_ recognize it in an obvious way.  
  
Draco nodded. His eyes were large and watchful, as though he was prepared to stop Harry if he bolted.  
  
But Harry had no intention of bolting. He didn’t really know what his intentions were, when he reached out and laid a hand on Draco’s cheek, but he knew that Draco unfolded like a serpent and reached for him, and that was more than enough for Harry. He bent his head and returned the kiss.  
  
Draco, this time, was desperate, kissing him with a punishing fierceness, and pulling him towards the stairs. Harry wrapped his arms around Draco, gasping as they flashed through darkness, and dropped onto Draco’s bed.  
  
He drew himself back onto his elbows, staring. Draco seemed just as stunned as he was, and Harry realized what must have happened. “What does it mean when the house Apparates you straight to bed?” he whispered.  
  
Draco looked up with his eyes so dark that Harry shivered. “It means that you’ve been accepted, in every sense of the word,” he whispered, and then opened his legs and accepted Harry between them.  
  
For long moments, they did nothing but kiss and rub together, and Harry thought it would be like the last time. That obscurely relieved him. Obviously, things had changed, but he would still prefer to go slowly.  
  
But Draco reached up and pushed against his chest, and looked into his eyes with a gaze of his own that drowned resistance.  
  
“What do you want?” Draco breathed.  
  
“Slowness,” said Harry, startled into speech. “Acceptance, but—slowness. I don’t think I know what I want other than that.”  
  
Draco smiled as if he was content, and then rolled Harry onto his side, kissing him with a slow, steady passion all the while. Harry liked that, he had to admit it, and he kissed back, with Draco’s tongue and hands tracing soothing patterns in his mouth and on his spine, respectively. They were tangled together until Harry found it hard to tell whether a particular hand was his or Draco’s.  
  
But he knew which needy, aching groin was his, even if he still found it hard to distinguish which high-pitched sigh was whose when their groins brushed together.  
  
Draco lifted himself on one elbow and pushed hair like light away from his forehead. “I want to show that this is full acceptance,” he whispered. “Things have changed, and you know it. What you shared with me when we were hiding in the other wing, as well as the—the things that happened after that. The way the wards bound to you. I didn’t tell them to do that, Harry. They just did it on their own.” His eyes were intense, searing. “Is it courtship, or isn’t it?”  
  
Harry moved his tongue slowly around his mouth. He wanted to know he could do that, just like he could resist what Draco was asking of him if he absolutely  _wanted_ to. He hadn’t given the courtship gifts on purpose, at first. He had thought they were being friends.  
  
Intense friends, of course. The first new friend he’d made in ten years. But still friends, and not lovers.  
  
But now?  
  
Now, things had changed. And Harry wasn’t going to pretend that they hadn’t. The heat shimmering between them, when he would have thought no heat could do that between him and a man, was proof of it.  
  
He nodded and reached up, catching Draco’s face between his hands and drawing him down for another kiss. Draco hummed and went with it, and then turned the hum into a sharp bite on Harry’s ear when Harry tried to prolong the kiss.  
  
“Now,” Draco whispered, and his hand skimmed down Harry’s arse.  
  
Harry shivered, and Draco pulled back and gave him a calm, sad look. “We don’t need to do this until you’re ready.”  
  
“But you are,” Harry said, and started. His own voice had a quality he didn’t understand, deep and husky and…odd. Not one he’d heard before, although he had plenty of memories of what he sounded like when he was with Ginny and Daphne.  
  
Well, he considered a moment later, this was going to be different. Not because they were women and Draco was a man, or at least not entirely. Just different.  
  
“I am,” said Draco, kneeling back and studying Harry slowly. For some reason, the disruption to their activities hadn’t resulted in any disruption of his mood, Harry realized. It was still there, still thrumming beneath them as though they were connected by the same chord running between their hearts. “And I thought that the evidence of the wards and how deeply you’ve wound yourself into our lives meant you are. But we can wait.”  
  
“You don’t want to,” Harry whispered, edging a hand up to rest on Draco’s cheek. Draco closed his eyes and didn’t bother responding. Harry knew what the answer would be, anyway. No, Draco didn’t want to, but he didn’t want to hurt Harry even more.  
  
Harry hesitated one more time. He was looking for an escape, he thought, some sensation or idea that would tell him this courtship wasn’t as entrapping as it seemed. He had started this on accident. Did he really want to do something that might mean he would spend the rest of his life with Draco?  
  
And then he snorted at himself, and made Draco’s eyes fly open. Harry ignored him for the moment, consumed by the answer thundering in his head. If anything happened that he didn’t like, he would respond exactly the same way he had when confronting the bracelet that apparently stated he wanted to marry Draco.  _He_ wasn’t a pure-blood, and he wouldn’t let those customs control his life or deprive him of anything truly important. The only question that really needed to be answered was whether he wanted this.  
  
And he did. It was a question of desire, not of custom.  
  
“Yes,” he told Draco, and he pulled him down again, kissing Draco into a languid mess that made Draco’s hand tremble when he finally managed to reach for his wand.  
  
The spell that stretched and loosened Harry—Draco said he thought they should use it for the first time, since Harry had never done anything like this before—made Harry close his eyes for the strangeness. Draco kissed them open again, and moved his fingers slowly down through the conjured lube, staring at Harry as though he was simultaneously the most precious and the oddest thing in the world. Like a weird jewel, Harry thought, and reached up to pull one of Draco’s fingers into his mouth.  
  
“Harry,” Draco breathed, in the same reverent tone he would have probably said “God.”  
  
Harry smiled at him, and sucked on his fingers until Draco pulled his shaking hand back and reached for Harry’s arse again instead. Harry nodded and opened his legs, then let Draco spread him when that apparently wasn’t enough.  
  
There were no words for Draco’s fingers inside him. Harry huffed steadily and thought about the ceiling. Then he thought about the sensation of Draco’s hand inside him, and how this would have been unthinkable five years ago.  
  
 _Well, of course, five years ago I was with Daphne,_ he thought, and opened his eyes and smiled at Draco.  
  
“This is okay?” Draco asked one more time, and Harry decided that it was time to bring back some humor, since Draco seemed so anxious about it.   
  
“Do you need me to make the ritual gesture of submission?” Harry laid his hand on his throat and rolled his eyes back until he knew all Draco could see was the whites.  
  
There was a long, silent, incredulous moment, and then Draco said, in tones of wonder, “ _Prat_.”  
  
“Yes, exactly,” said Harry, and moved his hand and opened his eyes. “I’ve given you my consent already, Draco, and that’s all you need. Please do what you need to so it doesn’t hurt too badly. But you can assume that I know that you’ll have to do a few unpleasant or uncomfortable things, and that I give you my full consent.”  
  
Draco paused, then bent down and kissed him. Harry reached up and touched the ring on his finger to Draco’s bracelet.  
  
Only later did he think that was a ritual gesture in and of itself, which would probably necessitate another conversation of a different kind. But Draco didn’t seem inclined to have that conversation right now. His hands were shaking, and so was his cock, which made it rather difficult to get it lined up the first time.  
  
Harry smiled all the way through it. He would have laughed again, but he knew Draco’s nerves were probably raw right now, and he wouldn’t take it well if Harry  _did_ laugh. So Harry lay there, and smiled, and then gasped when Draco surged into him.  
  
“I knew I should have asked again if it was okay,” Draco was fussing when Harry returned to himself. “There’s different kinds of okay, and different kinds of consent, and—”  
  
He stopped when Harry reached out and took his hand, and kissed the back of it. “It’s okay,” Harry whispered. “Both kinds. Go ahead and make love to me.”  
  
Draco’s eyes were like starlight, and his smile like the darkness between the stars. At last he seemed to have the kind of confidence that Harry would have wished for him all along. He began to thrust, and it was making love.  
  
Not fucking. Not that Harry didn’t think that word, didn’t think that Draco fucked him with long strokes. But it was that in fact, and lovemaking in spirit, in essence.  
  
Harry reached up his hands, and Draco, although he shifted awkwardly and nearly fell out of Harry at one point, managed to lift his hands in return and clasp Harry’s. Harry felt as though he was giving Draco pride and confidence, the knowledge of his pleasure that no one could have unless they were linked to him in some way.  
  
At the very least, Draco knew that Harry’s gasps were soft because of enjoyment and not pain, now. His eyes were both starlight and darkness, and he rocked in slow motions that filled Harry up in a way he hadn’t known he could be filled.  
  
It couldn’t last. Harry felt lucky that it had lasted as long as it had, with the two of them seemingly drifting in the middle of a deep void where only luck and beauty and love kept them alive. He couldn’t see anything but Draco’s eyes.  
  
It turned out he didn’t need to. He could feel through his body when Draco was ready to yield and come, and Harry clamped down and held with his inner muscles. Draco let out his own soft, astonished breath, and his eyes found Harry’s once more before he closed them and turned his head away as if the expression on his face would be too exposing.  
  
Harry watched him nevertheless, the turned head and the bent and shuddering neck, and then reached up and carefully smoothed his hand through Draco’s hair. Draco leaned his head on Harry’s chest and gasped out.  
  
It was that which made Harry come, how Draco had twisted away as if to hide his vulnerability and then done something that revealed it completely. They were bound together, and it had nothing to do with ring and bracelet, not at bottom, or even pure-blood customs. They had chosen this.  
  
Not that Harry didn’t  _like_ the pleasure that broke over him like a towering wave, but that wasn’t the ultimate point of this evening.  
  
The way that Draco looked at him and touched his forehead with a steady hand, the deep satisfaction that proved his uncertainty had gone away at last…  
  
Harry would have gone through fire for that. To have gone through lovemaking instead was his pleasure and honor. He lifted Draco’s hands to his lips and kissed them.  
  
Draco bent down and returned the gesture on his lips, his body trembling with joy.


	29. Some Semblance of Peace

“We didn’t catch all the Risen Cobras,” was the first thing Harry heard when he pulled up a chair in front of the fireplace.  
  
“I didn’t think you did,” said Harry, and smiled reassuringly at Ron, who was peering at him hard enough that Harry’s face felt dented. “I didn’t think they would waste all their strength attacking a heavily warded house, even if they knew I was there. I remember that much of Auror training.”  
  
Ron gave him a strained smile. “We—we learned some things other than just that they didn’t commit all their strength to this attack,” he said, and cleared his throat. “We learned it from the interrogation, I mean.” He cleared his throat again. “It was really disturbing.”  
  
Harry raised his eyebrows. Ron had his nightmares and problems from the war, but he had seen more Dark magic than Harry had since then through his job. “It must be,” he commented lightly, and waited for Ron to recover himself.  
  
It took Ron a moment, but he sighed and mopped his forehead with the back of one wrist. “Sorry, mate.”  
  
Harry shook his head and smiled at him. Compared to some of the things he had waited through or nursed Ron through, this was nothing. Maybe Ron was thinking of that, too, because he hurried briskly on with his words. “I think that the Risen Cobras weren’t formed to get Voldemort back to life, which I know you thought.” He paused until Harry nodded, this time. “They were formed to destroy you, and nothing else.”  
  
Harry blinked. That _was_ disturbing. “Did the ones you arrested say why?”  
  
“It’s still the same motive,” Ron said grimly. “Because you destroyed Voldemort. But apparently not all of these people were Death Eaters, or even family members of Death Eaters.” Harry blinked again. His main theories for the culprits behind the attacks on him _had_ been family members angry that some of their relatives had gone to prison on Harry’s testimony, or died because of him. “They think that Voldemort was the greatest Dark wizard ever or something. That he was going to lead a revolution of magic and make them the masters of the world.”  
  
“Well, that was what he preached,” Harry pointed out.  
  
“But they thought _they_ were going to be the ones to rule the world if he won, instead of him,” Ron said. “You have to admit, that’s pretty bloody delusional.”  
  
Harry nodded. But, well, he had never thought that Death Eaters had many brains. “Fine. They want to destroy me. How many resources do they have left?”  
  
Ron studied him for a second, then seemed to decide that Harry was really okay, even after his announcement, and he could go on. “They have about twenty wizards left. And at least one werewolf. They’re—I don’t know, they said that they didn’t have much magic left, but I think they meant it a different way than we did, even though they were speaking under Veritaserum.”  
  
“Ask them more piercing questions, then,” Harry said quietly. “Draco will want to know, and so do I.”  
  
Ron gave him an offended look. “It’s not like we were planning to let it go, mate. It’s just hard to think of any more questions to ask them.”  
  
Harry nodded. “All right. Then ask what you can, and report back to us when you can.” He gave Ron a smile, but then blinked when Ron chuckled. “What?” Harry had to admit, while he was glad to know more about the Risen Cobras, he didn’t see much about the situation that was funny.  
  
“It’s just,” said Ron, once he managed to choke down the chuckles, “that you refused to stay and become Head Auror, but here I am taking your orders anyway.”  
  
Harry winced. “Sorry, Ron. I didn’t think—”  
  
“Do you think I would have said it in such a calm tone if I minded?” Ron looked at him with eyes that showed his affection so clearly Harry caught his breath. “I wouldn’t have thought like this even a few weeks ago. Thanks for waking me up.” He extended a hand to the edge of the fire, and even knowing they couldn’t actually shake, Harry reached out anyway. Ron grinned at him again, and faded from view.  
  
“Am I allowed to give myself the credit for this?”  
  
Harry twisted around. Draco stood in the doorway of the sitting room, his thoughtful eyes on the fireplace instead of Harry’s face for once. But his smile was slow and passionate when he looked at Harry again, and Harry smiled back.   
  
“Credit for what? Ron and Hermione waking up and realizing they needed to change a little?” Harry cocked his head and stood up. “I think it would have happened eventually. There would have been a problem, even something related to the war, that I couldn’t help with. Or I would have got fed up and told them to go find Mind-Healers after all.”  
  
“But they might have got upset at you if you did that,” Draco murmured, moving towards him and tilting his head back expectantly. Harry gave him the kiss he wanted, and Draco uttered a wordless murmur and rested his head against Harry’s chest. “This way, they didn’t.”  
  
“No, they were just upset that I was dating a Malfoy,” Harry pointed out dryly.  
  
Draco’s shrug indicated how much time he’d spent worrying over that. “They’re not now, are they?”  
  
“No,” said Harry, thinking of the way Hermione had teased him over his last courtship gift for Draco, and the casual way that Ron could come to Malfoy Manor and firecall him there without grimacing. Hermione might not ever visit the building, but Harry could understand that. And at least they were happy for him instead of trying to persuade him to date someone else. “So maybe you can give yourself the credit for that. For a gentler transition.” He put his hand behind Draco’s head and drew him close for another kiss.  
  
“Come _on_! We have to practice Quidditch!”  
  
Harry blinked, and had the pleasure of seeing Draco do it at the same time. At least he knew he wasn’t the only one caught entirely off-guard. Harry stepped back with a small shake of his head and focused on Scorpius, who was standing in the doorway of the sitting room with a toy broom over his shoulder. “What do you mean? Why do we have to?”  
  
“Because Teddy said that he and Great-Aunt Andromeda could beat us at Quidditch!” Scorpius shook his head. “I said that you played Quidditch, Daddy, and Teddy said that didn’t matter, that he could still beat you!” He looked at Harry. “And then I said Harry played Quidditch, and Teddy said he could beat _you_.”  
  
Harry hid his smile quickly. He thought Teddy was probably lying on purpose to make the game more fun for himself. It was true that Andromeda was more than competent on a broom, but she didn’t play Quidditch, and hadn’t when she was still in school. Teddy’s boasts were outrageous, and he had to know it.  
  
“Then we’d better go and practice,” he said to Draco, who stared at him. “He’s right.”  
  
“You know that you could beat the rest of us if you had no practice and the rest of us had hours,” Draco said, shaking his head.  
  
“I haven’t flown after a Snitch in years, even though I have kept up on flying,” Harry said mildly. “I’m rusty.” He caught Draco’s eye. “Besides, this time I won’t be trying to beat _you_. We’ll be on the same side.”  
  
He could see that this view of the game hadn’t occurred to Draco before now. He took a small breath that brought a lot of color into his cheeks, and he nodded firmly. “Then let’s go out and practice,” he said, and reached out with one hand to catch hold of Harry’s. His other hand was held out to Scorpius.  
  
Harry happily followed them outside. He just hoped that Teddy wouldn’t take it too badly when they beat him and Andromeda utterly.  
  
*  
  
“Catch it, catch it!” Teddy screamed madly as he zoomed under Harry on his broom, aiming straight for the Quaffle. They had decided to use a Quaffle instead of a Snitch, in deference to Andromeda’s eyesight and to make things a little more fair, since both Harry and Draco had been Seekers and were expert in finding the smaller ball.   
  
They’d also used a Sticking Charm on Scorpius’s broom, which was the only thing that made it possible for Harry to relax as he watched Scorpius circle past below them, leaning hard to the side and laughing gleefully. There were already at least fifty feet higher from the ground than Draco usually let Scorpius go.  
  
“I’m going to catch it from this side!” Andromeda called back, and rose up from beneath the Quaffle in what would have been a neat move if Draco hadn’t leaned over just then and batted it out of her reach. Scorpius, who sometimes seemed to forget what side he was playing for, shrieked again and changed direction.  
  
Draco craned his neck back, at an angle that would have made Harry wince a little while ago, before the game began, and caught Harry’s eye. They hadn’t planned this, but Harry suddenly knew exactly what to do. He whirled to the side and down, to catch up with the Quaffle that had reached the top of its arc and begun to fall.  
  
For a second, the grass of the Malfoys’ Quidditch pitch whirled underneath him, and he felt as though he was going to be sick; his stomach seemed to be trying to jump out of his mouth. Then he pulled up the broom and skimmed to the side, and there was the Quaffle, right where he put his hands.  
  
He lost a moment when he fumbled the Quaffle, which he had automatically tried to catch like the Snitch. Then he had his hands in the right place again, and he tossed the Quaffle as hard as he could towards the side of the pitch.  
  
“No _fair!_ ” Teddy complained, although he was laughing so hard that Harry couldn’t be sure what was unfair. He only knew that there was wind around him, and the laughter made Harry feel as though he was younger than he was.  
  
Then he saw what Teddy meant. Draco was in the right place, faster than he should have been able to be, and he winked at Harry.  
  
And threw the ball to Scorpius.  
  
Harry caught his breath for a second. The Quaffle was flying through the air so fast, and Scorpius looked so small, even with the solemn, unafraid face he lifted to the ball.  
  
But his arms caught it, although they had to wrap almost completely around the Quaffle before they could, and he whirled to toss it to Harry. Harry made sure he was in the right place, both to catch the ball and to make sure that Scorpius saw his proud smile.  
  
Scorpius tossed it to him with the ease and grace of someone bigger, and Harry grabbed it and ducked a reaching arm from Andromeda. Teddy tried to crash into him, but Harry zigzagged underneath him and tossed the Quaffle through the hoop they had set up to receive it. Scorpius cheered madly, and almost fell off his broom despite the Sticking Charm. Draco laughed.  
  
Teddy crashed into Harry again, landing this time because Harry let him, and shook Harry’s shoulders a little. “No _fair_ ,” he complained once more, while his hair changed to dark mourning colors. “You should have let us win!”  
  
“Where did you get the impression that I intended to?” Harry asked, and grinned at Andromeda. She had pulled up her broom with far more grace and was surveying Teddy with a tolerant expression.  
  
“I don’t think it ever occurred to you, but boys will have their little ways,” she said, and nodded at Teddy.  
  
"I am _not_ a _boy_ ," Teddy said, and his hair turned green, although how that was supposed to prove that he was an adult, Harry didn't know.  
  
"Of course not, dear," said Andromeda. She gave Harry a small salute. "Perhaps next time, we can have a balanced team. You or Draco can be on our side, and the other one of you can play with Scorpius."  
  
Harry snorted as he directed his broom towards the ground. "As I remember, we _did_ offer you that. We asked if you wanted to play with me, and Teddy was the one who said that Scorpius would drag us down." He winked at his godson. "And that he was the best player of us all. So we would have to have three people on the other team just to oppose the _Mighty Teddy_."  
  
Teddy rolled his eyes, and his hair turned to blond this time, the color of the Malfoys'. "Very funny, Uncle Harry. Are you going to keep rubbing that in, or am I going to be allowed to forget it at some point?"  
  
"Well, I think part of this was the contest between you and Scorpius as to who was the better player, right?" Harry grinned at Teddy when he nodded hesitantly, and turned Teddy around by his shoulders as they both climbed off their brooms. Scorpius was coming down at a more sedate pace. Apparently, Draco was okay with letting his son dart around the Quidditch pitch, but he wouldn't let him drop to the ground. "So you could apologize."  
  
"Fine, Scorpius, you're really good," Teddy muttered under his breath, so softly that Harry _knew_ Scorpius couldn't hear it.  
  
Harry poked him in the back, and Teddy pouted at him and changed his hair to a messy black mop. He knew as well as Harry did that that usually got Harry on his side. But this time, Harry only looked at him, and Teddy sighed and turned back to his cousin, who was waiting expectantly.  
  
"You're a lot better than expected," Teddy said. "I didn't even think you could grip the Quaffle. I thought your arms were too short." Harry poked him in the back again, and Teddy didn't bother pouting this time. "But you got it, and you were good. Truce?" He held out his hand.  
  
Scorpius shook it. "You didn't know about my arms not being too short," he said. "They _look_ pretty short."   
  
Harry held back his smile. Right now, Scorpius was adorable, but it was also a sign that he could be mature and generous for his age. Those were attributes that Harry wanted to encourage instead of discourage, especially if he was going to carry on being pretty closely associated with Scorpius and his dad.  
  
Draco was standing next to them, watching everyone involved with a proud expression. He caught Harry's eye and smiled, and Harry smiled back. _I don't think I have much of a_ choice _about staying with Scorpius and his dad._  
  
Andromeda opened her mouth to say something. Harry did wonder, afterwards, what it might have been. Probably something complimentary. She had to like it that Teddy was acting like a good kid, and a good loser.  
  
He didn't feel the same thing he had done before, the thunderous pounding at the wards. Instead, something soared glittering overhead and dropped smoking on the grass in front of them, rolling back and forth like a ball made of light and mist.  
  
Harry whirled hard in place, using his arms to block Teddy when he started forwards, and then seizing Scorpius and tossing him into Draco. Draco grunted and staggered as he caught his son, and whatever motion he had been about to make in Harry's direction got stymied. Harry yelled, "Go! Go! Go!" Andromeda, no fool, was already herding Teddy in the direction of the Manor.  
  
 _The more distance they can put between them and this thing, the better,_ Harry thought grimly, and drew his wand.  
  
The bright ball in the center of the smoke had begun to glow as if a fire inside it had abruptly been built up. Harry concentrated all his will and all his power on a certain shield spell he had learned in the Aurors.  
  
" _Protego Maximum_ ," he said, making sure to enunciate the words correctly even when the ball began, shrilly and abruptly, to whistle.  
  
A second later, flaming pieces pinwheeled out of the ball, each glittering facet becoming a separate dagger flying in a circle. Harry's shield came to life at the same time, a rapidly expanding blue-white dome that shot out above Harry, and then the garden, and then the walls, and then the house.  
  
The daggers slammed against the shield and fell short, and the center of the ball, an immense black seed that rose up into the air, hit the dome and silently exploded. Harry wrapped his head in his cloak and ran for the house.  
  
A second later, the backlash of the spell caught him, and he stumbled. _Protego Maximum_ didn't just create a bigger shield than the traditional Shield Charm, but one that could be infused with will. That meant nothing would harm Malfoy Manor or the people inside it as long as Harry willed that it shouldn't be so. And he could will pretty hard.  
  
But in the meantime, that meant he was the one suffering from the deferred damage. He was breathing hard by the time he got to the side door of the Manor that Scorpius and Draco had already disappeared through. He thought Andromeda might have Apparated Teddy away.  
  
Draco looked at him with a white face, and then pulled him in. Harry cried out. He had broken ribs, and pressing on them hurt them.  
  
"Firecall the Auror Department," he told Draco, and then turned and looked out through an enchanted window that he knew could show him a view of the front gates if he tuned it appropriately. Harry tapped the window with his wand, and the view flickered.  
  
When it showed the cluster of figures gathered by the gates, Harry nodded. He didn't want to do this, would have preferred to handle it with help, but for the moment, he was the Manor's defense until the Aurors could get here. The blast the Risen Cobras had engineered had already taken down most of the wards.  
  
Harry bared his teeth a little. The Risen Cobras might have made a mistake.  
  
As hard as Harry would fight to protect his own life, that was _nothing_ compared to the way that he would fight to protect the people he loved.  
  



	30. Home Strength

Harry knew he didn’t have to hold the Risen Cobras for long. Just until the Aurors got here. Ron would scold him for even trying that long.  
  
But the threat they had launched proved they could get past the wards. And Harry wasn’t going to huddle in a room with Draco and Scorpius and wait for the door to break down. If they had the ability to hold out the way they had last time, it would be one thing.   
  
But this time, it was different. And in a small part of his soul that he rarely acknowledged by the light of day—a part that he perhaps only nodded to when he had to confront an enemy made by the war, like the Cobra in the middle of Diagon Alley—Harry was glad for it.  
  
He began casting the moment Draco was out of the room and he had the Risen Cobras firmly in sight. First he expanded the shield he maintained beyond the gates, until the shimmering color of it lapped at the Cobras’ boots. They would recognize it, or should. They would know that by hurting the shield, they could hurt him.  
  
Harry was sort of counting on that.   
  
Behind the shield, the distraction and the color of it, he began setting up a different shield, a glinting, glowing enchantment that lay like a purring golden cat across the ground that until recently, the Malfoy wards had surrounded. Harry let his fancy guide him and sculpted it into a real cat, made of joy and light. The cat stirred and rubbed its face on the ground, and Harry turned its head gently with his power until it faced the Risen Cobras.  
  
“Ready,” he whispered, then went back to work casting, readying yet another enchantment behind the cat-shaped one, one that would spring into life only when the cat-like one engaged.  
  
The Risen Cobras began to pound on the outer shield. Harry hissed as he felt ribs cracking and pain crackling up his side, prickling at his nerves. But that didn’t matter. He had a more important task in front of him right now than paying attention to his pain.  
  
The spell was finished by the time that the agony became so severe Harry had to lean on the windowsill. But the deed was done. Harry was grinning as he waved his wand in a gesture that would dispel the outermost shield before the damage to it could knock him unconscious.  
  
The Risen Cobras might be able to counter the cat-like shield; though uncommon, it was a spell they might know. But they weren’t going to be able to do anything about the spell behind  _that_ one, because Harry had invented it in the course of working with George.  
  
He was looking forward to this.  
  
The cat sprang to work the minute the outer shield dissipated, arching its back and tail and hissing at the Risen Cobras from an enormous translucent mouth. They froze, staring, and the cat grew bigger, spreading out its fur, encompassing the Manor. With the protection spread so thin, each individual spot was more vulnerable—but the cat wasn’t merely defensive.  
  
One taloned paw made of light reached down and swatted the Cobra standing nearest to the gate away. He flew and crumpled, and two of the others ran over to tend to him while the nearest one tried to attack the cat.  
  
The cat mewed and opened its mouth, swallowing the spell before it could touch even the fenceposts. A second later, it spat the spell back at the Cobra who had cast it, not redoubled but exactly as strong, a version of the usual Shield Charm’s reflecting effect. That Cobra, too, went down with a cry of anguish. Harry chuckled.  
  
“Why is there a giant  _cat_ defending our home?”  
  
Harry turned and smiled at Draco. The expression was surprisingly hard to summon. He must have been in more pain than he thought he was. “Because that’s the shape the spell took,” he said, and began to cough. The cough made his ribs feel as though someone was beating them with a hammer.  
  
Draco was at his side in instants, his arm curved around Harry’s waist. Harry gasped and tried to shove him away, but Draco only loosened the firmness of his hold; he didn’t back off. His eyes were narrow. “How much did the first shield drain you?”  
  
Harry would have answered, he honestly would have, but the shrieks from outside made him turn so he wouldn’t miss anything.   
  
The second spell he had placed behind the cat shield was engaging now. It rose in the form of a great tendril, which might look like a serpent if you were imaginative, rearing from the ground. It had been growing around the Risen Cobras without their noticing, weaving a circle of rooted vines beneath the surface of the soil.  
  
Now it pulled tight, snaring even the Cobras that had been thrown back by the attacks of the cat-shield, and gathered them all into a whirling net of green. A second later, it had sunk back into the earth, and the Risen Cobras were up to their waists in the dirt, struggling and flailing.   
  
The cat-shaped shield stalked delicately up to them and flicked their wands out of their hands. If it did some more damage to their hands while it was doing that, well, Harry had no problem with a cat’s actions.  
  
Then the Risen Cobras were sitting there, wandless and helpless, and the cat-shield turned back to the house and bowed with its forelegs stretched out in front of it before vanishing in a sharp burst of sparkling golden light.  
  
Harry laughed, at least until he coughed. Then he turned to Draco and managed to croak out, “Are the Aurors on their way?”  
  
“They are.” Draco tore his eyes away from the sight the Risen Cobras made and stared back so hard at Harry that Harry winced before he could stop himself. Draco promptly looked as grim as though Harry had listed all his symptoms. “You saved our lives. Thank you. Now to take care of you.”  
  
“Scorpius is safe?” Harry looked out once more to make sure that none of the Risen Cobras were getting out of his trap of molten earth. But it seemed they had no chance without their wands, which was what he had suspected.  
  
“Yes,” said Draco, and put a hand beneath Harry’s chin and turned his face back. “ _Now_. Are you going to struggle and resist when I take you to St. Mungo’s? I think you need more than the healing I was able to offer you after they chopped the hole in  _your_ wards.”  
  
Harry bowed his head tamely. Now that his anticipation about what was going to happen next to the Risen Cobras wasn’t protecting him, he could feel the pain more acutely. And then something seemed to  _pop_ in his side, and he gasped aloud. Draco promptly floated him into the air, conjured a stretcher, and maneuvered him towards the doorway to a different room.  
  
“I love you,” Draco whispered, as if he thought Harry couldn’t hear. “I just wish you loved  _yourself_.”  
  
Harry opened his mouth to object to that. He did  _so_ love himself. The problem was that other people didn’t necessarily love  _him_ , and in the meantime they would attack him, and he would have to defend himself.  
  
But there was a brutal sensation when he tried to open his mouth, and while he didn’t entirely suspect that Draco was responsible for it, he knew that either way, it wasn’t a good sign. So he leaned back and tried to avoid jolting his ribs while Draco bore him grimly to the nearest fireplace.  
  
*  
  
“May I ask what combination of spells you used to get yourself into this state, Mr. Potter? Your damage was severe. If your ribs had snapped in a slightly different pattern, one would have punctured a lung.”  
  
The voice of the St. Mungo’s Healer was gentle and respectful, but his eyes were narrowed in a way that made Harry suspect he was about to get a scolding. He smiled and hoped it was charming enough to get around the impending words.  
  
“ _Protego Maximus_ was the one that caused the majority of the wounds,” he began, and the Healer straightened up and turned a flat expression on him.  
  
“You know that using that spell can kill,” said the Healer. He was an older man with grey hair and a silver beard, and Harry thought he might look as cheerful as Dumbledore in other circumstances. Obviously, this wasn’t one of them. He jabbed an accusing finger at Harry. “You wouldn’t have used it if—”  
  
“If my adopted home and my loved ones hadn’t been in danger,” Harry interrupted. He knew the Healer probably meant to say “if you cared about yourself,” the way Draco had, but that wasn’t the  _point_. “I know it was dangerous. But it was the only way I knew to fend off enemies who had already broken through powerful wards. Be angry at them for the necessity, not me for doing it.”  
  
The Healer continued to regard him with narrowed eyes for the longest time, and then snorted and bowed his head. “A sensible way to look at it. I wish that I could be sure you would be as sensible in the future.”  
  
“I plan to be,” said Harry. “I don’t think there are that many other groups out there capable of destroying me.” He considered that thought and how it tempted fate, then added, “Well, anyway, I  _hope_ there aren’t.”  
  
“A wish that many of us here share,” said the Healer, and nodded to him, and walked over to the door, opening it. “You may come in and visit now,” he added.  
  
Harry sat up curiously, ignoring the way that some of his muscles still ached. He didn’t know if it would be his friends or Draco and Scorpius that walked in.  
  
To his surprise, it was George. He halted the instant he entered, and stood with his hands clenched as though he was fighting the impulse to walk back out. Maybe he thought Harry’s stare was pushing him back out.  
  
“You’re welcome if you want to be,” Harry told him quietly. “But the last I knew, you didn’t want to be associated with me.”  
  
The Healer looked at George with a frown that was more intimidating, coupled with his narrow eyes, than it would otherwise have been. “You can only stay if you don’t quarrel with and upset my patient,” he said. “Otherwise, leave.”  
  
“I wouldn’t have been the first one,” George said, as if his pain was strangling him. “Malfoy was here, but he left to get some sleep and be with his son. And Ron had to go to work, and Hermione had to go home to Rose—”  
  
“I’m not saying that you’re unwelcome, if you  _want_ to be here,” Harry said. “But what happened to me being banished from the shop and being a traitor?”  
  
George closed his eyes. The Healer moved in to put an authoritative hand on George’s arm. “Say anything like that, and you  _really_ can’t stay,” he admonished George.  
  
“It was you almost dying,” George whispered. “That’s what Ron firecalled and told me. And all I could think of was—Fred died without us being able to resolve our latest wager. And you would have died thinking I—”  
  
“I understand that,” said Harry, and had to smile at him. He didn’t like the way George looked now, as though he would sway on his feet and faint, but it was at least familiar from the bad spells Harry had helped him through. “But I really don’t want you to compromise with your principles or anything, George. You told me that I can’t understand what it’s like to lose a twin, and if that’s still true, then it’s better that we don’t talk for a while.”  
  
“I thought that,” George said, and sat down on a chair that had been drawn back to the wall. Harry imagined his friends or Draco sitting in it while they worried over him, and was a little glad that he hadn’t been awake while they did that. “And then I realized that I felt almost the same this time as when I thought about Fred.”  
  
The Healer withdrew quietly when Harry caught his eye. Harry really didn’t think George was about to turn violent or ungracious, and he wanted to be alone with him so he could understand. “But not the same,” Harry prompted, turning back to George.  
  
George swallowed. “Not exactly. But—but I thought about it. It’s been ten years since Fred died. What if—what if my emotions have faded a little? That would make sense. I thought they’d never faded, because it still hurt so much, but then I thought about losing you. You’ve helped me. The shop would never have succeeded without you.” He was babbling by now, his eyes locked on his hands. “I never—I didn’t think about it, I don’t know, you’re just always  _there,_ taking care of me, and it’s almost a betrayal of Fred to feel this way, that’s what it’s like, but—”  
  
Harry stood up, ignoring the way that his wounds twinged this time, and walked across the room to take George’s hands. George caught his breath and looked up.  
  
“I was wrong,” he whispered. “You’re not a traitor. I hate that you’re dating Malfoy and I’ll never like him, but you’re not a traitor.”  
  
“Thank you,” Harry said, and it did feel as though someone had removed a spear that had been sticking through him. He took George’s hands and squeezed them. “I’m glad to hear you say that.”  
  
“And the rest?” George was looking at him intently.  
  
“It was thoughtless of me to bring Draco and Scorpius to the shop without at least owling you first,” Harry told him quietly. “I won’t do that again. And we don’t have to talk about them if you don’t want to.”  
  
George nodded, his face sharp-etched with relief. “I never knew how much you  _were_ my social life,” he said. “Clients aren’t the same. Even Mum isn’t the same.”  
  
“I know,” Harry said. In some ways, he thought that hadn’t been good for George; he’d coddled George a lot, not helped him, the same way he had done for Ron and Hermione. But this wasn’t the time to bring it up. Maybe, with time, he could help George back into a more active social life, or at least into accepting some help from the rest of his family. “And I’ll be back in the shop as soon as I can.”  
  
George closed his eyes. “I don’t deserve this.”  
  
“You deserve as much of my aid as I want to give you,” said Harry fiercely. “Nothing more than that, but nothing less.  _I’m_ the one who decides what I want to give you.”  
  
George blinked, seemed to consider that from a deeper angle than he had before, and nodded. “I reckon that’s true.”  
  
“Of course it is.” Harry squeezed George’s hands and stepped away. He hated to admit it, but his head was spinning and he needed to sit down on the bed. “Now, why don’t you go back to the shop and work on your own for a while, and maybe write one of those letters to Fred that you told me you used to write? They helped you when your grief was new, you told me.”  
  
“That’s true,” George whispered, and stood up. His heavy regard was almost painful, but Harry had brought this situation on himself, and he couldn’t abandon George when he had been the one who’d encouraged George to depend on him. “I need—I need to write one of those. Thank you, Harry.”  
  
Harry smiled at him and sat down on the bed without slumping, which left him impressed with himself. “Good. I’m glad I could help.”  
  
“And now you’re going to lie down before you fall down,” Draco’s cool voice said from the door.  
  
Harry couldn’t prevent the smile from lighting his face or the way he turned around, and only a second later did he think to check what effect Draco’s presence was having on George. But George seemed to have accepted it as at least a temporary thing. He nodded and mumbled something, and fled past Draco, out the door.   
  
“Lie back,” said Draco. “Do you know how badly you were hurt? Internal bleeding. Torn internal  _organs_.” He walked over to the bed the way that Harry thought he probably would when Scorpius was sick and eased Harry back against his pillows.  
  
“I thought it was just broken ribs,” said Harry, a little startled. “The Healer didn’t mention anything about internal bleeding.”  
  
“He probably would have, if you’d asked him.” Draco’s gaze was heavy in a different way than George’s had been. “But you never would, would you? No, instead you exhaust yourself feeding self-esteem back into someone who recently called you  _a traitor_.”  
  
Harry winced, then winced again because of the pain still tearing through him. Draco cursed softly and reached for a potions flask on the table beside the bed.   
  
“This isn’t the time to have this conversation,” he said in a tight little voice as he poured the potion between Harry’s lips. “But we  _are_ going to have this conversation about why you keep doing things like this to yourself.”  
  
Harry knew he couldn’t leave it there, even if the potion would make him fall unconscious in a few minutes. He reached out and caught Draco’s arm, squeezing it tight. Draco looked at him with a clenched jaw that didn’t his misery, or his worry.  
  
“I do love you,” Harry whispered. “And I’m sorry. I need—to think about this.” The potion was thickening his throat and his voice. “Need to think of better ways to protect the people I love. Will you—help me?”  
  
He had time to see Draco’s face soften, see his nod, before the unconsciousness claimed him.  
  
But a few leftover thoughts spiraled around him like falling leaves in the blackness: how close he’d come to dying, much closer than he’d realized.  
  
If he’d died, he would never have heard George’s words. Never played with Scorpius again. Never seen Draco again.  
  
Maybe it  _was_ time to think of some other way. 


	31. A New Way

“I’m fully recovered,” said Harry, and when Draco looked at him doubtfully, Harry waved the piece of paper he had asked the Healers to give him. It had a full statement of what had been healed and said he was all right now, and three Healers had signed it, including the two who had tended Harry most of the time when he was suffering from his worst wounds. “I said you wouldn’t believe me, and they signed this for me.”  
  
For a moment, Draco’s eyes widened, and then his lip quivered, and he reached out and accepted the piece of paper and looked at it gravely. They were standing in the middle of the largest sitting room, furnished in dusky red and gold—Harry thought one of the Malfoy ancestors must have been a Gryffindor—and Harry had just come through the Floo. He could hear Scorpius laughing somewhere down a corridor.  
  
“All  _right_ ,” Draco said, and he looked up with a faint smile. “If you bring me a testimony like this, I suppose I have to accept it.”   
  
“Damn right,” said Harry, and leaned forwards to kiss him.  
  
Draco accepted the kiss, but the next moment, he put his hands on Harry’s shoulders and looked at him searchingly. “You understand why I wanted you to take care of yourself?”  
  
“Yes,” said Harry, and sighed when Draco continued to look at him. “And I do want to find a different way. Seeing you worried isn’t—fun for me. And I don’t think anything else could have made George change his mind.”  
  
Draco narrowed his eyes. “That sounds like a reason for you to  _want_ it to happen.”  
  
Harry shook his head. “The only thing I could think of was that I might have died in that battle, and never lived to hear George apologize.”  
  
Draco relaxed. “I feel bad using the instincts that you have against you,” he murmured. “But it seems like it’s the only way to make you  _listen_.”  
  
“You weren’t using them against me.” Harry pressed the palm of his hand flat on Draco’s shoulder for a moment, and then stepped back and shook his head. “I was refusing to listen to common sense, which I could have listened to a long time since if I was serious. Now. Can I see Scorpius?”  
  
Draco’s face was nothing but his brilliant smile now, warmth in his eyes helping to add to the light. “Yes. He’s been asking after you.” He opened the door, and Scorpius, Golden tucked in one hand and a book under the other arm, came trotting in. He headed for Harry as though he’d been an arrow fired by a master archer, and held out the book.  
  
“This talks about birds,” he said. “But there’s no bird in there like Golden. Not even a magical bird. What bird did you make him to be like?”  
  
Harry smiled and crouched down in front of Scorpius, delighted that such a simple movement didn’t cause him pain now, the way it had a few days ago. “We didn’t have a specific bird in mind, much,” he said, turning the pages. “We let the magic find the way and tell us what it wanted to be like. But I think the one we most wanted him to be like is here.”  
  
He’d found the page with a canary on it. Scorpius leaned across and studied the yellow feathers and the way that the canary in the picture tilted its head back to sing and then snapped its back closed and looked around itself again.  
  
“He doesn’t look  _much_ like Golden,” Scorpius said doubtfully.  
  
“He’s not much like him,” Harry agreed, and pulled a little on Scorpius’s hair when he eyed Harry doubtfully. “But like I said, the magic was the thing picking the bird’s form. We didn’t compel it. We just asked it to choose a certain form, and it chose it.”  
  
“I never heard of such a method of making toys,” said Draco neutrally from behind him.  
  
Harry sniffed at him. “That’s because you’ve never worked with crafts and pranks the way George has. He’s the genius behind the whole project. That’s why I couldn’t fix Golden when he broke like that,” he explained, turning back to smile at Scorpius. “I didn’t know enough about the magic. George was the one who did.”  
  
“I hope Golden doesn’t break again,” said Scorpius, and clutched the bird close. “That man doesn’t like me.”  
  
“He’ll be better now,” Harry said vaguely. He knew that George wouldn’t want to see Scorpius, but at least he shouldn’t object to teaching Harry the spells now. “But I know that you don’t want to see him. You don’t have to.”  
  
Scorpius considered that, then nodded seriously. “Can I make a canary like that someday?” he asked, pointing to the picture.  
  
“You have to wait until you get a wand,” Draco intervened. Perhaps he thought Harry had gone far enough promising his son feats of magic that might never be his.  
  
“I know,” said Scorpius, and gave his father the sort of infinitely patient look that made Harry have to bite his hand. “But after that? Can I do that?”  
  
“Maybe you can,” said Harry. “It’s complicated and takes a long time to learn, but maybe. Or you can ask your father if you can have a canary so you can take care of it, too, and learn about birds from it.”  
  
Draco raised an eyebrow. Scorpius smiled and said, “That’s a good idea, Harry,” then turned and looked at his father instinctively. Apparently he saw no need to ask when Harry had done the asking for him.  
  
Draco shook his head and sighed, but he didn’t look  _displeased,_ as such. “Maybe you can have one, Scorpius,” he said. “But it’s not a decision to be taken lightly. A pet isn’t like Golden. You can’t carry it around all the time and clutch it to your side. Canaries are delicate, and they need time and space to fly.”  
  
“I want one,” said Scorpius, and gave Draco a smile that Harry thought would have melted him long since. Maybe it was a good thing he didn’t have any children of his own. “Please, Daddy.”  
  
“I still need to think about it,” Draco said. “And so do you. You can set Golden on the tables beside you, and on any shelf, and sleep with him under your pillow. You can’t do that with a canary. Their wings would break and they would die.”  
  
Scorpius’s eyes widened in distress. “I don’t want that to happen, Daddy!”  
  
“I know you don’t.” Draco’s voice was gentle and calm again. “Which is why you need to  _think about it._ Go away and think about it, and then come back to me when you have.”  
  
Scorpius trotted out of the room with his head hanging. Harry shook his head and clucked his tongue. “My, my. You’re being strict with everyone this week.”  
  
He’d meant it as teasing, but Draco turned towards him with stern lines on his face. “I’m only doing what I need to do to get people to think about their actions.” He reached out and put his hand over Harry’s heart, and waited there, as if he wanted to hear the pounding to make sure it beat before he continued. “And I hope that you won’t undermine me with Scorpius. He needs to understand the ramifications of his actions.”  
  
“Of course,” Harry murmured. He made no effort to move away from the touch on his chest, sure Draco had something else he wanted to say.  
  
Draco stepped closer, without moving his hand, only bending his arm. “This is a question I would have asked before,” he said. “But I didn’t want you to think that I was asking it only to keep you.”  
  
Harry blinked. “Well, all right. Ask the question.”  
  
“I’m asking you if you’ll accept—a gift like the one you accidentally gave me,” Draco said, and Harry had the impression that he’d sheered away before speaking the words that were actually in his head. “Only this one won’t be accidental.”  
  
Harry sucked in his breath. Draco’s hand on his chest trembled, but Draco didn’t look away. He was brave enough to face the rejection, if it was going to be rejection, head-on, Harry thought, a little awed.  
  
He raised his hand and curled his fingers around Draco’s wrist. Draco’s head promptly drooped.  
  
“I want you to explain all the  _ramifications_ of accepting the gift to me before I do,” Harry said firmly. “It’s not that I’m unwilling, but I am going to learn what they are.”  
  
Draco still stood there for a moment as though he didn’t believe what Harry was saying. Then he lifted his head and murmured, “It’s an announcement of intent to marry. More serious than the courting and betrothal gifts we’ve got each other so far. More serious than something like the ring or the bracelet.” He gained more confidence as he went on, and Harry had to smile. He loved to see the flash of what was like white fire in Draco’s eyes, his love for these customs and how much they meant to him.  
  
“It means that you’re committed to me, wholly and deeply.” Draco caught Harry’s eye, and Harry felt his smile fade in response. This was too serious, indeed, to be treated like a joke, he understood now. “That you won’t ever think of leaving me.”  
  
“And what about you?” Harry’s voice was as sharp as an unsheathed blade, and he couldn’t help that. “I won’t agree to a commitment that’s not total and mutual.”  
  
Draco stared at him with his mouth a little open. Harry would have stepped away if this was back at the beginning of their friendship. As it was, he narrowed his eyes and then said, “I know that you’re not stupid enough to think I’d agree to a one-sided commitment. So explain why you’re gaping at me like this.”  
  
“I didn’t think you were stupid enough,” Draco snapped, his voice gaining force as it rose, “to think that I would ever want to look anywhere else.”  
  
Harry relaxed slowly. “I’m sorry. I just don’t enough about these customs to know whether some like that exist.”  
  
Draco shook his head. “Some exist, because the customs are supposed to cover all possible situations that two people might find themselves in. That includes marriages where one person isn’t interested in taking lovers and the other one is.”  
  
“Fine,” said Harry. “See? My instinct for whether one could  _exist_ was right. Just not the suspicion that you might want to use one.” He caught Draco’s eye and smiled at him.  
  
Draco relaxed in turn. “No. This would be commitment. But it is incredibly binding. You could only break free of it if your heart was no longer mine. If you fell out of love with me. Anything short of that, like just being displeased with me and wanting to move out of the Manor for a while—that wouldn’t be allowed.”  
  
“So the Manor is my home?” Harry asked. “Even if all the Risen Cobras have been caught now and I could go back  _home_?”  
  
“Yes,” said Draco. “The gift—part of the gift is my house.”  
  
Harry blinked. “Your house.”  
  
“Normally, it would include attunement to the wards, but you don’t seem to need help there.” Draco’s voice was dry. “But it does include keys to the all the doors and drawers in the house, the names of all the portraits and the doors that are locked with words instead of wards, the location of the secret passages, permission to enter my room or Scorpius’s at any time of the day or night—”  
  
“All right,” Harry interrupted. “As long as it’s a symbol. I was picturing myself trying to carry the Manor, and I don’t have shoulders that broad, no matter what my friends think.”  
  
“ _I’ve_ never thought you do.”  
  
They were back to that again. Harry nodded slowly. “All right. I can’t promise that I’ll always manage to curb the impulse to leap in front of a spell when someone flings it at you, or Scorpius, or Ron, or Hermione, or Rose, or George, or—”  
  
“Things might be easier if you loved less people,” Draco interrupted, and his voice was jagged in a different way, which meant they at least weren’t talking about matters of life and death. Love and jealousy, maybe.  
  
“Things would never be easier because of that,” Harry contradicted him firmly. “Certainly not for me.”  
  
Draco regarded him with glimmering eyes for a moment, and then nodded slowly. “All right. But I want to know if you can make the same commitment to me, and accept the gift.”  
  
Harry took Draco’s hand, finally, off his chest. Draco closed his eyes, but opened them again when Harry kissed his fingers, one by one, until he came to the knuckle of the last, and inclined his head over them.  
  
“Yes,” Harry said, and kissed Draco on the lips. “I can.”  
  
*  
  
Draco brought the gift to breakfast two days later, when Scorpius was telling Harry earnestly that he thought he wouldn’t get a real canary because Golden would be jealous. Harry, listening, agreed that was a good point, and one he hadn’t thought of before.  
  
“And Daddy is right that it’s a big responsibility,” Scorpius said, sounding out the word not as if he was unsure how to pronounce it but as if he wanted to make sure that he understood all the implications. “So I can have Golden. He’s a small one.” And he picked up the bird and hugged it to him with one hand.  
  
Harry watched him with a fond smile. Scorpius looked up at him and asked, “Are you going to stay with us, Harry?”  
  
Harry breathed out slowly. “I want to,” he said. “I promised your dad I would. But if you don’t want me here, I’ll go.” Scorpius might not be the most important factor in the decision as to whether Harry would accept Draco’s courting gift, but he was at least a highly important one.  
  
Scorpius gave him a shocked look. “If I don’t want people here, I start wailing. None of them can stand that.”  
  
“Wailing?” Harry repeated, a little stumped.   
  
Scorpius obligingly opened his mouth and produced a sound that reminded Harry of a banshee, although thank Merlin, he had never had to actually listen to one for long. He nodded and said hastily, “I understand!”  
  
Scorpius finished his wail first, and looked smug. “That makes them run away,” he told Harry, and picked up his fork again. “If I don’t want them here, I just do that. I want you here, so I didn’t do that.”  
  
Harry nodded, and finally became aware that Draco had left to go use the loo a strangely long time ago. Ron had been confident they’d captured the remaining Risen Cobras this time, but what if—  
  
Then Draco came through the door of the dining room carrying a large silk pillow balanced on his hands. There was a white rose in the middle of it.  
  
At least, Harry mistook it for a white rose at first glance. When he looked  _more_ closely, he found that it was made of white silk, folded around a stem that looked like real silver. He blinked. He supposed white and silver were symbolic colors, but what they could mean, other than purity, he didn’t know.  
  
Scorpius apparently wasn’t shocked, because he had turned around and was watching closely. Harry wondered if Draco had told him about this beforehand, although he thought Scorpius would have had trouble keeping it secret.  
  
Draco bowed his head and held the silk pillow out in front of Harry, so close that Harry could feel the soft fabric brushing against his nose. “I want you to take this rose from me,” he whispered. “Accept it, if you love me and can commit to me alone.”  
  
Only Harry’s knowledge of the fact that that didn’t mean giving up his friends and other precious people held his mouth shut for the moment of consideration he needed. Draco’s hands didn’t tremble. He seemed to have grasped this hesitation. Still he held the pillow out, offering it, and Harry nodded and reached to accept the rose with fingers that didn’t shake.  
  
“I accept what you offer me,” he whispered. “Everything.” Draco hadn’t told him the ritual words to say, but ones like that surely ought to be good enough.  
  
The rose burst into bloom, transfigured so suddenly that Harry staggered and almost dropped it. But Draco was holding his hand, pushing it into the rose’s stem. Harry gasped aloud as the white cloud of the bloom soared above his head, growing stronger and stronger, taller and taller, and stared up at it when it had almost reached the ceiling.  
  
Then it shrank down again to more minor proportions, but still a real flower, in Harry’s hand. He looked in dazed wonder at Draco, who was smiling at him with a special meaning that dragged a gentle laugh from Harry.  
  
“The size of the rose represented the size of your commitment,” Draco explained, sounding as though he was speaking with a grave, subdued delight. “And it wouldn’t have become real at all if you didn’t mean it.”  
  
He leaned across and kissed Harry, gently. Scorpius cheered.  
  
Harry felt something like the same delight rising in him as he kissed back.


	32. Announcing the Engagement

"We have them all, mate." Ron slung his legs across the top of his desk, grinning at Harry over his knees. "The ones we caught right before you went into hospital practically shit themselves trying to give us information, they were so terrified."  
  
"What a graceful way of putting things, Ron," Harry said, and rolled his eyes at his best mate. Inwardly, though, he was rejoicing. Maybe Ron had also needed a major triumph like this, of capturing criminals who threatened Harry, to bring him back into a normal mood. Harry had barely seen him grin like this since the war.  
  
Harry shook his head a little and moved on to the question that he knew Draco would want him to ask. "And what exactly did they want? Were they only after me, or did they have a larger purpose?"  
  
Ron tilted his chair back further, to the point where the legs scraped on the floor and Harry was certain he was going to fall out of it. He bit his tongue to avoid saying something about it. Ron had chosen to do this. Harry couldn't always be running after him and trying to save him bumps on the head. It wasn't right, and it wasn't fair.  
  
"I think they had a larger purpose originally." Ron shook his head, his eyes grim. "That's something some of the Aurors are still questioning them about, you know, seeing if they can tie them to any crimes that took place in the last few years."  
  
"Besides the attacks on me," Harry muttered. Although, even then, he had to wonder whether some of the attacks he had taken for lone grudge-matches were tied to the Risen Cobras. He hadn't always bothered to ask before he trounced those people and handed them over to the Aurors, and he hadn't always asked any follow-up questions, either.  
  
 _Talk about shitting themselves. Draco would do that if he knew how few questions I used to ask._  
  
"Yes," said Ron. "Besides that. From what I can tell, they did form to follow this principle of Dark wizards ruling society." He rolled his eyes, and Harry smiled. Few Dark wizards could play nicely enough with others to hold together their own groups for long, never mind ruling the whole of society. "They thought Voldemort was the greatest example of that type, and they wanted to get vengeance on you for killing him. And for spoiling their little dream that they would have stood at his side as he ruled, I think."  
  
Harry grunted and picked up Ron and Hermione's wedding photograph from Ron's desk to admire it for a moment. "What idiots. It wasn't as though Voldemort would have shared power with anyone, even his own Death Eaters."  
  
Ron shook his head sadly. "Dark wizards. What can you expect?"  
  
Harry shook his head at him around the corner of the picture frame, and covertly compared the mad way that the Ron in the picture smiled with the way he was smiling now. Yes, they looked a lot more like each other than any smile Ron had given in the last five years looked like the one in the photograph. "Yeah. But they eventually turned to focusing solely on me?"  
  
Ron sobered, and nodded. "Yes. I think they meant to take vengeance on you and move on, but they were appalled at how stubborn you were." He leaned across the desk to poke Harry gently in the shoulder. "How arrogant of you not to die when you were supposed to."  
  
"My heart bleeds for them, truly," Harry said. "And then they came up with these plans to get the blood past my defenses and torture me with it?"  
  
"Yeah." Ron shook his head. "I saw some of their private spellbooks. Magical genius turned twisted, just devoted to persecuting you and nothing else. It's nonsense." He punched Harry on the shoulder, caught his eye, and then looked away. "But it could have been dangerous nonsense, especially when they had spells that could gnaw through wards."  
  
"I'd like to know how they did that. I know Draco wants to make sure that his wards are stronger in the future." What Draco had actually said was _I'm going to guard the things most precious to me behind blood wards, if I have to,_ but Harry wasn't going to tell Ron something he would have to take professional notice of. He was courteous like that.  
  
"We'll find out and pass the notes on to you." Ron suddenly blinked and sat up. Harry hid his own grin. "What's that, mate? I don't remember you wearing that before."  
  
"This?" Harry casually picked up the necklace of electrum links around his throat, although he knew full well that was what Ron was talking about. "Oh, it's a gift from Draco." At Ron's gesture, he pulled the end of the necklace out from beneath his shirt, showing the teardrop-shaped pendant there. It was nearly flat, except for a slight hump in the middle, but the gleaming silhouette of entwined roses on it showed up easily.  
  
Ron coughed behind his fist. "His gifts are never just gifts, mate. What's this one mean?"  
  
Harry paused, but this was as good a moment as he was going to get, he thought. Ron didn't have any food or drink in his hands, or his wand, either. "It's a sign that he proposed to me, and I accepted him."  
  
Ron gasped anyway, his hands flying out as if he was going to catch something and use it to save him from falling to the floor. Since he was already sitting down, Harry didn't think he was in much danger. But he did catch one of Ron's hands and place it gently back on the desk.  
  
" _Proposed_ ," Ron said, gasping, and staring at Harry. " _Proposed_ to you."  
  
 _Well, at least he doesn't think the biggest part of the news is that I accepted Draco._ "Yes," said Harry calmly. "I don't know if he would have that soon, but my getting injured the way I did shook him up. We had a talk, and I promised to try and be better about getting injured, and he asked if I would enter into a different sort of commitment with him. I agreed, and so he gave me this white rose made of silk and silver that turned real when I touched it."  
  
By the end of his announcement, Ron had gone a little pale and was looking at him fixedly. Harry regarded him back. "What's the matter? Is that a pure-blood custom you've heard of?"  
  
"Yes," muttered Ron. "It's the custom that my dad used to propose to my mum, although they--well, the rose wasn't made of silk and silver. They couldn't afford it."  
  
Harry was a little ashamed to realize that his first thought had been to wonder how a change in the materials that made up the rose would change the meaning of it in the custom. He wasn't Draco, no matter how close he felt to him sometimes. "I'm sure it was fine," he told Ron, as kindly as he could manage.  
  
Ron shook his head, snapping out of his trance. "Okay, so I've heard of it, and he proposed to you. Mate, that rose...it's the deepest commitment that someone can ask of someone else. It's only used between people who are absolutely _sure_ that they want to stay together for the rest of their lives." He hesitated. "I didn't even use it to propose to Hermione."  
  
"I think she liked that just as well," Harry said firmly, and caught Ron's eye. "For one thing, she probably wouldn't appreciate a pure-blood custom being used like that when she's Muggleborn."  
  
"Sometimes, mate," said Ron, his voice going dry, "you stun me with how much you don't know about witches. Maybe it's a good thing you're not marrying one." He hesitated and eyed Harry almost over his own shoulder. "You're sure? _Really_ sure?"  
  
Harry nodded and tucked the chain back beneath his shirt. Draco had told him that the necklace wasn't a separate gift from the rose, especially since it had the pattern of roses engraved on it, that they meant the same thing. But it would let other people know, visually, the status of his engagement to Draco.  
  
Actually, what Draco had told Harry originally was that the "real" custom called for the person who had accepted the proposal to wear a loose collar made of chain links. Harry had explained why that wasn't acceptable, and he had even done it without swearing. At the end, Draco had looked thoughtful and proposed a real chain holding the pendant. It would still have the same symbolism as a collar with the pendant clipped on the front, he had said.  
  
"I don't know how you got so sure when you haven't known Malfoy for long," Ron said, and shook his head. "Better you than me."  
  
Harry snorted despite himself. "Yes, I think Draco would agree with that."  
  
Ron flicked a small piece of paper at him. "Anyway. I'm happy for you, mate, as long as this is what you want. The minute it isn't, tell me and Hermione and we'll come rescue you, and I don't care if we have to storm the gates to do it. I happen to know the wards of Malfoy Manor are weak right now..."  
  
Harry pushed Ron's shoulder roughly. "I wouldn't have agreed to the commitment in the first place if I wasn't sure."  
  
"All right," said Ron, and then made a face at Harry. "As little as I can understand it, I meant it when I said that I was happy for you."  
  
"I know," Harry said, and then they went on to talk about more interesting things, in Harry's opinion, like how George was doing a little better running the shop by himself and wanted to see Harry as soon as possible, and how they were going to announce the engagement to the rest of the Weasley family.  
  
*  
  
"Harry. Congratulations."  
  
Harry turned around with a small smile. "Hello, Daphne." He didn't bother saying anything about the bracelet she had guided him into choosing. He was sure that it was deliberate, now, but on the other hand, it was about as far from an expression of ill will as he could imagine, when he was so happy with Draco. "Thank you."  
  
Daphne raised an eyebrow, as if she knew that Harry was thanking her for more than the congratulations, and looked down at the small rank of cut jewels that Harry was examining. "You read up on the customs enough to know which return gift is appropriate, then. Congratulations for that as well."  
  
"Yes," said Harry, and turned and lingered over the gems again. He knew that certain gems meant certain things, and the cut of them, and the color, meant even more. After looking over the whole list of meanings in secret--sort of hard to do in Malfoy Manor; he'd had to go to the shop and help George for a while to have the needed privacy--he'd decided on what he wanted. However, this shop didn't seem to have it.  
  
"What _are_ you looking for?" Daphne showed no interest in moving on, or doing anything other than looking over his shoulder. Harry reckoned it was her own sign of approval, and it was hard to resent her, when they'd parted so amicably and she had helped him and Draco before.  
  
"A cabochon-cut ruby," he said. "You'd think they would have one, right? I don't see one, though. They don't have many rubies, anyway." He had looked again and again over the rows of gems in the display case to be sure, but he was as sure as he could be without asking the shopkeeper what every single one of the gems was. He'd memorized the look of the ruby in the picture in the customs book carefully.  
  
Daphne was quiet beside him. Harry thought she'd gone away for a second, but then he turned around and she was looking at him as though he was an interesting new specimen of fungus, the sort of thing she'd have a scholarly interest in.  
  
"A cabochon-cut ruby," she repeated, as if testing the words. "You really mean it, then."  
  
Harry nodded. "But if they don't have one here..."  
  
"I know where they have one," Daphne said abruptly. "But you're not going to find the sort you need in a common shop like this." She swept her hand disdainfully along the four walls, ignoring the gaping shopkeeper's gasp of outrage. "You'll need to come with me and be prepared to pay more than you might have thought you'd have to." She looked at Harry with a measuring eye, and then nodded. "Are you prepared?"  
  
"Yes," said Harry, and followed her, with only a placating shrug at the shopkeeper. He knew from long experience that trying to get Daphne to apologize was futile, one reason that he'd done a careful dance when she was around his friends. At least he could come back sometime next week and get the ruby set in a ring or something here to give the shopkeeper some business.  
  
The shop Daphne showed him was as expensive as she'd said, but the ruby, gleaming like a beating heart, was worth it, and Harry took it home tucked carefully into his pocket, his breath short as he thought what Draco would say when he saw it.  
  
*  
  
"Harry."   
  
Draco rose to his feet as Harry crossed the sitting room to him. Scorpius had been with them only a few minutes earlier, and although Harry would do anything to spend time with him most days, this evening it had started to feel as if the kid would never go to bed. Once he had dropped off, and then he had popped up again and complained that he didn't feel tired and he wanted Harry to show him some spells that would change Golden's color.  
  
But now he was bundled off to bed, and Harry had even waited a few minutes in the corridor beyond the sitting room when he came back from saying good-night to Scorpius, breathing evenly so he wouldn't look like a complete fool.  
  
Draco, though, had seen something in his face that gave him away. Harry took the ruby out of his pocket and held it out to Draco, hoping he hadn't got something wrong _now._ The instructions in the customs book said the chosen gem had to be given to your beloved in private, on your hand and nothing else, which had seemed so simple that Harry had read that section ten times looking for more complications.  
  
But Draco looked at the ruby, and his eyes began to blink rapidly. He looked Harry in the face and stepped towards him, one hand coming to rest on the side of his neck and the other on his palm, covering the ruby.  
  
"Yes," he whispered. "Oh, yes."  
  
Harry smiled at him and kissed him gently on the lips. "Do you want me to recite the lesson I've learned about this gem?" he whispered. "To prove that I chose it with full knowledge of what it implies?"  
  
"Yes," said Draco, giving him a brilliant look. "Please."  
  
Harry dropped to his knees in front of Draco and reached out to close his hand around the ruby. "Rubies are at once hard and soft," he said. "Their actual hardness, combined with their living color. It signifies that I see you as another heart outside my body. Especially that deep red hue this one is."  
  
Draco watched him with soft, narrow eyes, as if he wanted to shut out the sight of anything beyond Harry, anything but the lover who had chosen him, and chosen to follow one custom at least in honoring him with this. His heart filled with a glittering, transcendent pride, Harry wondered why he had never done this before. Sure, there were still some pure-blood customs that he didn't want to embrace, but there were plenty that were fine, and when it made Draco so happy...  
  
"Why does the hue matter?" Draco asked, as if he was a child who needed the lesson.  
  
"Because the deeper the hue, the deeper the commitment," Harry replied quietly, his voice reassuring, but he knew from the way Draco swallowed that he wasn't thinking about Harry the way he would a parent. "And the cabochon cut. That's important, too."  
  
Draco opened his hand so Harry could see the ruby again, but Harry already knew what it looked like. Besides, he didn't really want to take his gaze from Draco's face. "Tell me why it's so important," Draco whispered.  
  
Harry took his hand. "Because the jewel that Merlin supposedly gave to Nimue was in a cabochon cut. And he gave that to her even when he knew that she was going to trap him in a tree forever. He gave it to her because the cabochon cut meant love so deep to him that no turning back was possible." He rose to his feet and leaned in to rest his cheek against Draco's. "And that's what my love for you is like, too."  
  
Draco swallowed and laid the ruby carefully on the table beside him, and then wrapped his arms in a furious hold around Harry's neck. And after that, there was no more talking for the night.  
  
But Draco wore the ruby proudly in the ring Harry bought him the next day, and if Harry doubted this was real, all he had to do was look into those eyes that smiled whether or not Draco meant them to. 


	33. A Matter of Labor

"I really want to have lunch with you, Harry."  
  
Harry hesitated. He'd been about to leave the shop and go to Malfoy Manor for lunch, where he knew Scorpius probably had stories to tell him, and Draco would turn his ring in ways that made the light flash off the ruby in it. It amused Harry that Draco thought he needed to show his ring off so often to the person who had got it for him, but it endeared Draco to him, too.  
  
"Please," George repeated, staring straight ahead with his lips quivered with something that wasn't amusement.  
  
Harry studied his face, and then nodded. He didn't think this was going to lead to an argument about the Malfoys. Honestly, George hadn't fought with him since Harry had started coming back to the shop on a regular basis, but he had been silent. He had seemed perfectly happy to have Harry there sometimes and away sometimes.  
  
This time, it was important that Harry stay.  
  
"Of course," he said, and drew his wand. "Let me just send a Patronus so Draco will know where I am for lunch."  
  
He had thought George might flinch at the sound of Draco's name, but all he did was close his eyes and nod, his face grateful. That convinced Harry it was even more important to stay. He turned away and summoned the silver stag, then gave it its message and watched it bound through the far wall of the shop.  
  
Draco and Scorpius would be disappointed he wasn't there for lunch; Draco might also be concerned. But Harry wasn't breaking any promises this time, and a Patronus was better than a firecall, which had a remarkable ability to turn into Harry promising to do what Draco wanted.  
  
"I'm all yours," Harry said, and turned around and smiled at George when every trace of the Patronus had faded.  
  
George stood up. "Then let's eat in Diagon Alley."  
  
It was so unusual for him to want to go out and eat that Harry stared. But George had already turned away and didn't see the stare anyway. Harry blinked and caught up with him, hastily locking the shop. George had walked out without turning his head, apparently assuming Harry would use his own key.  
  
Harry cast the small enchantment that made letters of colored fire wreathe in front of the door, spelling out, _Sorry, we're closed! Call again in an hour!_ and then turned and hurried after George.  
  
He caught him up in a moment; George was ambling along with his hands in his pockets. George flicked him a quick glance, and then looked down at the cobblestones of the Alley. Harry could see a faint smile trembling at the edges of his lips, as though he was uncertain what effect actually smiling would have.  
  
But he didn't say anything, and Harry was content to walk silently at his side, for as long as George needed that.  
  
*  
  
They came to a stop in front of a large stone building that they'd never entered before. George hesitated, and Harry followed his gaze to the sign in front of the building. He knew it was a pub, but at the moment, he couldn't remember what it was called.  
  
 _The Sign of the Black Apple._  
  
That was encouraging, Harry thought dryly. But if George wanted to eat here, they would eat here. He honestly didn't have much of a problem with it. He waited silently for George to make up his mind, his hands in his pockets.  
  
George took a deep breath as though expecting Harry to complain, and then he ducked into the stone building. Harry followed him, and saw a large dim room that didn't differ too much from the Leaky Cauldron, although the black wooden paneling on the walls might originally have been finer than the Leaky Cauldron's. There was a low eddy of smoke from the pipes of numerous wizards and some witches sitting at the tables, and both the chairs they sat in and the mugs they clutched bore the same unfinished, edged, chipped look.  
  
"Welcome, gentlemen," said a witch who seemed to appear from nowhere. She had black eyes, black hair twined in braids over her shoulders and streaked with grey, and she looked back and forth between Harry and George as though she suspected one of them would draw a knife any second and she was prepared to deal with it. "What will it be?"  
  
"A table, and the hottest food you have," said George.  
  
Harry had had his mouth open to order. He blinked and closed it. It had been years--in fact, he couldn't remember the last time--that George had made his will clear in a pub. Of course, he wasn't usually in them at all to _make_ his feelings clear.  
  
The woman checked once with Harry, then nodded and led them towards a table that stood right in front of the fireplace, overhung with a mantel and sides of strong wood, as though it had been built of the logs that would someday be burned in it. "Of course. And to drink?"  
  
"The hottest drinks you have, too," said Harry impulsively. He suspected that might be Firewhisky, but on the other hand, either he or George might need Firewhisky before the end.  
  
The woman's eyes lit up, and she nodded enthusiastically as she took Harry's Galleons. "You're going to _love_ this," she promised, and trotted away.  
  
The table had only two chairs, close together, as if whoever had sat here before them had wanted to incline their heads together and whisper secret business. Harry dragged his chair around so that he was sitting opposite George and could see his face more easily, and waited.  
  
And waited.  
  
George stared at the dark surface of the table and traced a finger through it, which had no discernible effect on a surface so marked with smoke, chips, rings, actual fire, curses, and Merlin knew what else. Harry finally lifted his eyes from a particularly deep lightning-shaped stroke down the center of it, and wondered if George's unaccustomed will had finally run out, if he would have to take charge to at least begin the conversation.  
  
But the witch came back first, carrying shallow, steaming dishes of what looked like black soup and brown noodles, and mugs that bubbled as if they were boiling. She set them down, one mug and two dishes for each of them, and tossed spoons onto the table in afterthought. She gave Harry a slight, smug look.  
  
"Thanks," said Harry. "Nothing else for now."  
  
The woman nodded and turned away, walking into what seemed like a door made of shadows just beyond Harry's line of sight. Harry ignored the shivers that wanted to spread through him when he saw that, and scooped up a little of the black soup. George copied him, but slowly.  
  
The soup was beyond hot; it was peppery, spicy, each sip that Harry took of it seeming to change in his mouth. Harry coughed and started drinking from the mug before he remembered that he had ordered the hottest drink, too, and that was hardly going to help him.  
  
It didn't, much, but it did replace some of the heat in his mouth with its own heat. It tasted, intensely, like baked apples, but it was as dark as the soup in the dishes, which Harry supposed was part of where the name of the pub came from. He sipped again for its own sake, and then turned to the noodles. These were still steaming, of course, but this time, the taste was a little gentler.  
  
"It's good," said George, and then launched straight into the conversation he obviously wanted to have before Harry could say anything in response, even to scold George for not eating. "Harry, I need--I need help, I know that. But I don't know _how_."  
  
Harry considered George for long minutes while he kept eating. George sat with his hands folded in front of the bowl, staring at it. He did drink some of the cider, or whatever it was, when Harry stared at him, but his pleading gaze stayed on Harry. He didn't know what to do, that much was clear, but that he was asking for help at all was a good first step.   
  
"I think you ought to have a chance to talk to Fred," Harry said at last. He knew what he was saying was risky, but leaving George in this sort of state was riskier, he'd already seen that. After all, George had talked about wanting to die for certain.  
  
George blinked. "But I talk to him all the time. Any time I'm alone, and I feel his presence draw near me."  
  
Harry ate some more of the soup before he responded, and then he reached across and locked his hand on George's. He didn't want George to start and upset the bowls or the drinks when Harry said what he had to say. "I'm talking about a Calling Back ritual."  
  
George did start, but Harry's hand was stronger, especially because Harry had been eating more regular meals lately than George had, and his fist didn't fly very hard or high off the table. "What? _Why_?"  
  
"Because nothing else is going to do," Harry said. "You've got to see him and talk to him and learn what he really thinks about you--about you coming to join him." That was the most diplomatic way he could phrase the shocking thing George had told him.  
  
George was silent for long seconds, staring at the table, drawing the fingers of his free hand over it in the search for scars he could follow again. Then he whispered, without looking at Harry, "But that's necromancy. Dark Arts."  
  
"Not for twins," Harry said. He'd looked into this ages ago, because he'd wondered if George would need it. "Their bond is exempted under the old laws. I doubt that anyone thinks about it very much anymore, because they don't want to practice necromancy _anyway_ and it's easier to just assume that the Ministry has banned everything, but that's the way it is."  
  
George's throat bobbed, and he looked up at Harry with a desperately appealing expression that made Harry nod in spite of himself. He thought George could do the Calling Back alone, magically speaking, but he would be there. He would help. And it would prevent George from doing something rash, like going with the ghost.  
  
"But it's disturbing his rest," George whispered next. "That's what I've always read about necromancy, why it's horrible. It wakes up the dead and drags them back."  
  
"You've already said that you feel him near you sometimes, and that you think he wants you to take revenge on the Malfoys," Harry said quietly. "How is that restful? Maybe he would be happy for one more chance to see you and talk to you."  
  
George was silent, his head bowed. Harry waited him out. He had no idea what George would say next.   
  
When he looked up at last, there was such a burning desire in his eyes that Harry knew what the answer would be before his head moved in the tiniest of nods. He did want to see his twin's ghost again. He simply thought that he owed it to morality, or conventionality, or something, to object to necromancy no matter how much he wanted it.  
  
"Two days, then," Harry said. The moon would be full then, and Light necromancy should be done with as much support from the elements of the natural world as possible. If they had done it at the new moon, then that would be closer to Dark necromancy.  
  
George either already knew the reason or was just as grateful to have someone who wasn't him decide on a deadline when they would do it, because he bowed his head and sat there with his hand clutching Harry's. Harry let him hold on in silence, and ate the very good food with his free hand.  
  
*  
  
"What you're doing is reckless and irresponsible."  
  
Harry leaned his elbow on the table and considered Draco. Scorpius was still in the room, and so Harry hadn't been specific when he talked about what he was going to help George do. He had only said that George really needed to speak with his brother again, and so Harry would aid him in doing so.  
  
Now Scorpius was looking back and forth between them, holding his fork up in the air and not bringing it near his asparagus, and Draco had one hand clenched on the table like he was going to shove it into Harry's stomach and get his attention that way. Scorpius shook his head a little. " _I_ would talk to a brother if I had one," he said. "Why can't he talk to his brother, Daddy?"  
  
Harry thought Draco would put Scorpius off with a little lie and return to the subject later when they were alone. He couldn't want his son to know about necromancy yet. But to his astonishment, Draco turned to Scorpius and said, "His twin brother is dead. You can't speak with the dead. It's magic called necromancy, and it's evil and Dark. You must never do it."  
  
"It's not Dark for twins," Harry muttered.  
  
He had thought Scorpius would ignore him, but lots of his assumptions were turning out to be wrong this evening. Scorpius focused on him instead. "Why not?"  
  
Harry glanced at Draco, but Draco said nothing, sitting there with his arms folded and his gaze drilling into Harry. Besides, Harry thought he had already made his preferences clear when he had said what he'd said about necromancy in front of Scorpius. So Harry would feel free to talk about it.  
  
He turned back to Scorpius. "Twins have a special bond," he said. "That bond isn't meant to be broken by death, but sometimes it happens."  
  
"Did his brother die in the war?" Scorpius asked.  
  
Harry nodded.  
  
"Is that why he doesn't like us?" Scorpius had a solemn look on his face, and he was clutching the fork hard enough that it wavered back and forth. "Because lots of people who had their family die in the war don't like us?"  
  
"Yes," said Harry. This was a big dose of truth at once, but he thought it would be worse if he concealed it, the way it would have been worse to help George without telling Draco what he intended to do.  
  
Scorpius nodded, processing it. Draco broke in before he could ask another question which Harry thought would be just as fascinating as his last few. "It's not _illegal_ for twins. That isn't the same thing as it being a Light spell."  
  
Harry turned to him. "It's not illegal, and in this case, it would prevent a larger evil," he said. "George told me that he thinks he hears Fred calling to him, that he wants to be with Fred all the time, and that he thinks Fred would approve of him taking vengeance on living people. Even people who weren't born when the war was going on." That was as close as he would come to mentioning George's desire for suicide to Draco.   
  
Draco looked a little grimmer. "That means he's likely to wrench the spirit back unwilling with the Calling Back ritual, even if it's the spirit of his twin. I don't think Fred Weasley would be telling his twin things like that, so he must be far away from the world."  
  
"I won't deny that George needs other kinds of help," Harry said, lifting one protective hand before Draco could start a rant. "But I _do_ think that keeping this one away from him in the name of doing good would only hurt further. He's never going to be convinced that he can have any kind of life until he hears it straight from his twin's lips that he can. It's been ten years since the war. Ron and Hermione got better when I stopped coddling them because in a certain way, their problems were exaggerated by what I was doing for them. George's problems aren't like that, and I want him around for a good while to come."  
  
He and Draco battled through gazes for a long moment until Draco finally looked down at the table. "So you don't think it's reckless and irresponsible," he said. "And nothing I can say will convince you otherwise."  
  
"I think it could be reckless," Harry said. "I also think that it's something my friend needs, and that's what I'll do. The same way that I've done things for other people I love that they've needed." He met Draco's gaze squarely. "The reckless and irresponsible thing would have been not telling you about it."  
  
"Daddy?" Scorpius asked uneasily. "Harry? What are you fighting about?"  
  
Draco maintained his stare at Harry for a moment, and then sighed and turned to Scorpius, ruffling his hair. "Something that isn't Malfoy business anyway," he said. "It'll be okay."   
  
"So you and Harry aren't going to fight?" Scorpius asked. "You're still going to be married?"  
  
"No, we won't fight," said Harry. "And we're still going to be married." He reached out and touched Scorpius's head in turn. "I promise."  
  
Scorpius immediately started talking about what toys he planned to bring to the bonding ceremony, while Draco looked at Harry again. "It's up to you, in the end," he said, although he still looked unhappy about it. "Although I object if you intend to bring any artifacts that belong to _that_ kind of thing into my house."  
  
"Of course not," said Harry. "George would think they were forever tainted if I did that, anyway."  
  
That won a reluctant smile from Draco, and they were finally free to turn their attention to what Harry considered really important about the evening: Scorpius's descriptions of the ideal bonding. And when Draco's hand slipped into Harry's and squeezed tight, Harry knew himself forgiven.  
  



	34. Calling Back

"You're sure this is going to work?"  
  
George's face was so pale that Harry thought he could have counted his freckles, despite the only light being the flickering candle in George's hand. Then his hand jerked, and the candle moved away from his face, and wild shadows danced around the walls of the spare room in Harry's home. Harry had moved all the furniture out and spent a day Transfiguring the wooden walls and floor into the simple, bare stone required by the ritual.  
  
"Yes," said Harry.  
  
He _was_ sure, and that was the attitude that supported his voice, but he knew George had needed to hear it even more than he had. George took a deep breath and steadied his hand again, and Harry thought a little more color had returned to his face. He set the candle down at his feet and took out the small, black-handled silver knife that Harry had said he needed. Harry had offered to provide the knife himself, but George had said he had one.  
  
"It needs blood," George murmured, as he had more than once since they started discussing the Calling Back ritual, and looked up at Harry. "You're sure that it won't count as Dark magic?"  
  
"What separates it from Dark necromancy is the time we're doing it," Harry nodded towards the ceiling of the room, although they couldn't see the full moon from inside, "and your intention. You're not calling Fred back to make him tell you something. You only want to speak to him again. Right?" he added.   
  
"Of _course_." George's voice was hushed, as if he was a Muggle speaking in a church. He knelt down in front of the candle a second later, and Harry stepped back and closed his eyes, reaching for that calm place inside himself he'd once sought and failed to find when he was practicing Occlumency.  
  
But Harry had long since accepted his share of that failure, and no longer blamed himself, which could have caused an imbalance of his mind that would be fatal to the ritual. He was the bridge, the one who would contribute the magical strength that linked Fred and George. George was the initiate, the one who had to shed the blood and use his desire to begin crossing that bridge.  
  
And Fred...  
  
Well, Fred was the crosser between worlds. If they could reach him.  
  
Harry banished the doubts, as he touched the calm that had stood him in good stead all those years when he was wrestling with his friends' problems. If he could manage that, then he could manage this, to be the bridge and the anchor that held everything together. This was another manifestation of the same thing, of helping George, the way Harry did when he held him through a shaky period or listened to his nightmares. He could do this.  
  
 _They_ could do this.  
  
The calmness wrapped Harry as it had seldom failed to do since he learned, and he opened his eyes and turned towards George. George was staring at him so intently that Harry thought he could have ordered him to admit Draco and Scorpius to his shop at the moment, and he would have.  
  
Not that Harry would ever have misused the trust George had in him that way, but it did promise excellent things for the Calling Back ritual. He held out one hand, and made it as steady as he could, while he curled one hand into a soft beckoning motion.   
  
George knew what that signal meant; they'd discussed it before they began this. He closed his eyes tightly as he drew the knife along his forearm, and then up in a spiral. He did it perfectly, despite his shut eyes and the nervousness that had made his hands tremble only a short time ago. Harry watched, holding his breath as the blood spread out on the floor.  
  
George hadn't moved his arm at all while he was cutting, but nevertheless, the blood raced across the floor in a precise pattern, as though it was dripping through an invisible sieve in the air between George and the stone. It formed a spiral like the one George had carved into his arm, the inner point of the spiral right beside George's knee and the open side pointed towards Harry.  
  
Harry smiled. He could feel the tenuous force of the magic shivering all around him now, partly George's and partly something else. He had never felt Fred's magic, so he couldn't say for certain what it was, but he reached towards it with his own power, and caught the edge of a warm presence like a clasping hand.  
  
Harry chanted the single actual incantation the ritual would use, the small Latin spell that would open up him to the world beyond. " _Voco anima, invoco anima, in nomine animorum._ "  
  
The words were stronger and more confident than Harry had ever heard himself say a spell. A second later, he realized a second voice was speaking the words along with him, which might account for it.  
  
And the voice was familiar. Harry opened his eyes and saw a patch of air in front of him that was bulging and rippling strangely, and then it twisted and grew the features of a face that was recognizable to Harry because he saw its twin every day.  
  
"Hello, then," said Fred, in a voice that made Harry's ears tremble, and he turned around and looked at George. A gust of warm wind blew past Harry, and he relaxed. If this had been a hostile spirit, or if they'd been doing a necromancy ritual that verged on Dark Arts, the wind would have been cold.  
  
"Oh, Fred."  
  
Harry had to close his eyes, once he was sure that doing so wouldn't break the magical connection that had brought Fred here. There was so much in George's voice, so much emotion that he wished he could get up and leave the twins to experience alone. But he had to be here, as the bridge. The only thing he could try to do was make sure that he didn't intrude too much on their privacy.  
  
"Why did you call me back?" Fred asked, but he didn't sound accusing, only curious. Harry breathed out slowly and hoped it would stay that way.  
  
"Because I missed you," said George at once. "And I wanted to know something, something important. Did you want me to take revenge on people?"  
  
"On what people?" Fred was looking around when Harry opened his eyes again. He seemed to be examining the stone on the walls, and Harry wondered if he didn't know where he was, and if George would explain. But instead, Fred muttered, "This is surprisingly good Transfiguration. Did you--"  
  
"Harry," George interrupted, shaking his head. Harry bit his lip hard as his heart ached a little. They no longer finished each other's sentences, or not in the same way. "I want to know if you want me to take revenge on the Malfoys."  
  
"What do the Malfoys have to do with it?" Fred turned back and stared at George. "Did they cause my death?"  
  
Harry held his silence, although that was also difficult. He wanted to say that not even Lucius Malfoy had been anywhere near the spot where Fred died, but it wouldn't do any good. This was something Fred and George had to work out for themselves.  
  
"No," said George. "I've been trying to find out who cast that exact spell, but I couldn't." He drew in a wavering breath, still staring at Fred. Harry didn't think he'd blinked once since Fred's ghost had appeared. "They--they were Death Eaters, though. And Harry here has taken up with Draco and practically adopted that son of his."  
  
"I didn't know he had a son," said Fred, and he glanced at Harry over his shoulder for a second. But it was George he turned back to. "No. Don't worry about it. Just try to find the person who cast the spell that killed me. Then you can take revenge on _them_." The dark smile on his face made Harry think of the way the twins had grinned on the day they left Hogwarts when Umbridge was in charge. "That would be nice."  
  
George nodded slowly. "So you don't want me to come join you?"  
  
"Of course I do, when you die." Then Fred shook his head. "But don't think that you can get me to tell you what it's like, over here. It's literally indescribable, and it's forbidden for a reason, anyway."  
  
George, who Harry knew would once have pounced on that demanding to be told what was indescribable, instead gave Fred a searching stare. "But you don't want me to die and join you now?"  
  
Fred abruptly billowed closer to George, frowning at him so hard that Harry blinked a little. "What stupid thoughts _have_ been going through your head, little brother?" Fred muttered. "I know that you've changed, but _what_ have you been thinking?" And his misty hand flashed through the air, smacking George on the side of the head.  
  
George gasped and rocked, although Harry hadn't heard any sound of impact. Maybe the twin bond Harry had read about that made the necromancy legal also meant that George could feel Fred where no one else could.  
  
"You've got stupid, is what it is," said Fred with conviction, floating around George so fast that parts of the mist that made up his body seemed to linger behind him like trailing smoke. "It's a disease that you've caught off little Ronniekins." Abruptly, he looked towards Harry. "Is little Ronniekins still that stupid?"  
  
Harry hesitated, but George looked as if he was in shock, and Fred appeared impatient. Harry probably _did_ need to answer that one. "No," he said. "He was for a little while, but he's grown-up now. And he's doing better with his trauma from the war than he did for a long time. So is George," he added, when Fred frowned at him.  
  
"This is doing better?" Fred asked doubtfully, and turned around to look at his twin. This time, the way he touched George's face was reminiscent of a caress, to Harry's relief. He wouldn't have wanted Fred to hurt George every time he touched him. "He must have been badly off."  
  
"He was," Harry said simply. "He has been since you died. That's why I thought it would help him to see you and talk to you again."  
  
"Oh," said Fred, as if he had never thought of it like that, and then, "Oh. Yes." He looked for a second at his twin, his face gradually changing. He looked different from George now, and Harry knew it wasn't just the different ages between the living and the dead. Fred had acquired a knowledge that George hadn't, the way that George had one that Fred didn't possess by living alone with his pain for so long.  
  
"I can't do that much," Fred said suddenly, and his face was normal again as it became desolate. "Give him answers to a few questions. Tell him the truth about what I think." He looked at Harry again.  
  
"I think that will be enough," said Harry, suffering a surge of desperate pity and equally desperate amusement that he had become the person who even dead Weasleys looked to for advice.  
  
"That's enough," George said, and Harry's heart swelled at the sound of his voice. George might have needed some help, but he was strong and confident and in control now. He was standing up, and his gaze at his brother was loving, but without that dangerous yearning which Harry had seen in it that day George had talked about committing suicide. "I thought--I thought I heard your voice calling me. I would never have considered it normally, because I did know that it would hurt Ron and Harry and Hermione and Mum and Ginny and all the rest of the family, but I would have done it rather than let you suffer alone."  
  
Fred looked down at the ground and shook his head. "I would never do that to you, George. And even the revenge...you said that you had tried to figure out who it was and you couldn't. If you can't, you can't." He looked back at George and stretched out a hand again, although he didn't make contact this time. "I would rather that you live."   
  
George was the one who took Fred's hand. "As long as I _know_ that," he said. "The uncertainty was the worst part. I couldn't be sure whether this was what you wanted or whether you were speaking to me at all, but now I know what your voice sounds like. I'm not going to forget again."  
  
Fred snorted. "You never should have forgotten, git. My voice sounded like yours, except a _lot_ cleverer. The way I looked like you, except handsomer."  
  
George didn't even frown at the past tense, although Harry felt a small shiver travel through him at the sound of it. He only grinned and said, "I'll remember that, brother." He stood there for what seemed to Harry a long time and not long enough at all, scrutinizing Fred's face and the mist that made up his body and trailed behind him. "And now," he whispered, "I think it's time to say goodbye. Harry looks pale. He's been holding onto this bridge long enough."  
  
"You've been there for him, then," Fred told Harry. "Thank you."  
  
Harry smiled. He would never have called Fred back just for this, but it was good to hear it from him. "Thanks to you. I'm glad this worked."  
  
"Yes," said Fred, and turned to make his farewells to George in private. Harry lowered his eyes to the floor and hummed as loudly as he could, so that he wouldn't hear the words.  
  
"All right, I'm ready."  
  
Harry didn't know, when he looked up, who had actually said that. The twins' voices did sound a lot alike, now that they were in the same room for the first time in ten years. He nodded to Fred and then to George. "Ready?" Fred had to come back across the bridge, symbolically, before Harry could end the magic that supported it.  
  
"Never," said George, and looked into his twin's eyes again, but he stepped back from the bloody spiral on the floor.   
  
"I am," said Fred, and gave George another stern look. "You've had ten years to get used to this, you should be better at it by now. _I_ know that I would have been if I had been the one to survive."  
  
George gave a smile that was more full of real feeling than Harry had seen in ten years. "Yes, well. That just shows that I'll have to do a lot better because now I'm living for two."  
  
Fred said something that Harry couldn't hear, and George's voice changed a little. "I know."  
  
The magic was aching in Harry, and it was with relief that he saw Fred pass him, looking mistier than before. Fred winked at him, and then said in a low voice, "I know you've taken care of him, Harry. The mark of that is all over him. Your magic and your care. Just--do what you need to, and help him stand on his own feet."  
  
"I will," said Harry, feeling an intense sadness for a moment. Fred had died so young, without the chance to experience so many of the things George had gone through, the things Fred _should_ have been able to do. It was unfair.  
  
Fred seemed to read that off his face, too, because he smiled briefly and said, "I'm used to it, by now."  
  
Then he was gone, tattering into strips of mist that vanished before he got near the wall, and Harry dropped the magic with a gasp that felt as if it tore out his heart. He turned around in time to see the blood on the floor bursting into flame and flaring up with a dark red light that vanished like Fred a second later.  
  
George sank down on the floor, and Harry went over to him. But he had simply bowed his head into his hands, and he murmured thickly through his fingers, "We actually did it. I think that we--that was what I needed. I can't imagine not speaking to Fred again."  
  
"I don't know if we should call him back again," Harry began cautiously.   
  
"That's not what I meant." George lifted his head, his eyes shut, and groped with one hand until Harry took his and held it. "I meant that he was right. I should have been able to listen to my voice, and know what his sounded like. And I should have known that he would want me to live and have all the experiences for him that he can't have so I can tell him about then when I get there. I should have known that all along."  
  
He squeezed crushingly down. Harry held his hand and said nothing for a moment, trying to choose the right words, and then only, "Sometimes we need outside help to make us see what we should have known all along."  
  
George opened his eyes and nodded. "Yes. And in this case, yours was the help." He glanced up at Harry, held his gaze for a second, then stood up. "Let's get out of here. And you can Transfigure the room back. I won't need it again."  
  
He walked out of the room with his back straight and his eyes shining in the corners with tears. Harry smiled and began the process of Transfiguring the stone back. It did need to be done. George was right.  
  
And it gave George a chance to stand in the drawing room and look at the full moon through the windows, and if he talked to Fred or himself while he was alone, no one else needed to know.  
  



	35. Silver Roses

Harry stirred lazily and flung out a hand so it should land on Draco’s chest. He had got back late last night after the ritual with George, but he had found Draco waiting up for him.  
  
“It did what it needed to do?” That was the only question Draco asked, looking into Harry’s eyes, and Harry had nodded and said, “Yes.” He knew it was the only question that Draco would ever ask, the only one that Harry need answer. Draco didn’t approve of the ritual, but that was different from not understanding the need.  
  
But Harry’s hand landed on open sheets, and Harry rolled over and stared at the empty bed in confusion. Draco hadn’t talked about needing to get up early this morning, for business or a custom or any other reason.   
  
 _Maybe Scorpius had a bad night and he went and comforted him,_ Harry thought, a little dazed, and decided that he might as well get up himself. A shower would do him good. He hadn’t been tainted by the magic he’d used to conduct the necromantic ritual for George, or at least he didn’t believe so, but he did feel as if he had walked through thick smoke. The grease would cling to his hair and skin until he washed it off.  
  
He stood under the warm water, tilting his head back until he felt as if he had scrubbed even the corners of his eyes. Then he sighed and turned his head so the water could drum down on the tight muscles of his back. It was long minutes before he turned the water off and reached for a towel.  
  
The instant he stepped out of the bathtub, he leaped and yelped. Draco was down on one knee in the middle of the bathroom, utterly ignoring the rough mat beneath him, his eyes so steady and wide and trustful as they met Harry’s that the next emotion Harry felt after surprise was wonder.  
  
In one hand was a silver rose. Harry let his eyes travel slowly from the shimmering haze of its petals, which he knew were real, living, but didn’t look it, to Draco’s face.  
  
Draco looked utterly solemn, and Harry knew what that meant. There was some other pure-blood custom going on here, one he hadn’t heard of. He only hoped that he wouldn’t accidentally do something wrong and mess up the sense of ritual that Draco was hoping for.  
  
He nodded and waited. Draco had to know that Harry wouldn’t know the right words, so probably this custom didn’t involve words. As far as actions went, Harry would rather stand and drip for an hour than move too hastily.  
  
Draco, sure enough, stood up a second later. He’d probably just waited for Harry to acknowledge his presence and the rose. He paced up to Harry and spent a moment looking him over, his eyes examining every point, until Harry’s face was redder than it had been when they’d had actual sex. It felt as if Draco was evaluating and nodding his consent to Harry’s soul as well as his body.  
  
Then Draco reached out and began tracing the petals of the rose he held over the drops that were sliding down Harry’s chest.  
  
Harry watched the petals as though he was incapable of looking away. The odd thing was, the whole time, he knew he  _could_ look away. He could feel the tension thrumming in the muscles of his neck, how hard it was not to break this off and change the mood with a laugh, a joke, something that would ease the intensity from Draco’s eyes and let them act normally together.   
  
But he couldn’t bring himself to. He knew this was important; that it was important to Draco was enough to keep him still, no matter how his skin prickled from the gaze, no matter how embarrassed he was.  
  
Draco ran the rose in circling, swirling patterns until he reached the edge of the towel. Then he turned the rose to the side, and thorns Harry hadn’t known were there, because they hadn’t touched  _him_ , cut through the cloth. Harry blinked as the halves of the towel fell to the bathroom floor, and Draco once again knelt in front of him to complete the patterns of the rose traced towards his feet.   
  
By the time he finished, and Harry had felt the touch of the petals between his toes, Harry was hotter than he’d ever been in his life. He couldn’t hide how hard he was, either, but at least Draco didn’t seem inclined to stare at him and make his skin burst into flames—which was the only way that he could properly express any higher degree of embarrassment, Harry thought. Draco only stood up with a little nod and put a hand on Harry’s shoulder.  
  
Harry thought he might finally say something, but instead, he turned Harry gently around so he faced the bathtub, and then started trailing the petals of the rose in the other direction, down his back.  
  
Harry panted. He didn’t know when he had started that sound or how he could stop it, only that it was there now and it went on and  _on_. When he shut his eyes, that actually enhanced the silky, fleeting touch of the rose, and he decided that he might as well open them again.  
  
The tracery of the rose on his back seemed to take longer, although Harry thought it should either take the same amount of time or a shorter one, because Draco didn’t have as many different features to mark this time. Frankly, Harry was surprised that he had that much room left in his own brain for rational thought. His head ached and pounded, and his throat was dry. He would need a drink soon, from the bloody panting.  
  
“There,” Draco breathed at last into his ear, and kissed his earlobe. Harry moaned; his skin was so sensitive that it stung. Draco paused, and then reached up and drew the earlobe between his fingers, provoking another gasp. “Is that an answer to my question?”  
  
“What question?” Harry was sorry the instant he said it, because  _now_ he was sure that he’d ruined the ritual. Draco had probably wanted him to just go along with things and say yes or no.  
  
But Harry wasn’t capable of doing that when he didn’t know what the question was. He loved Draco, he even appreciated some of these pure-blood customs, but he still wouldn’t use them to sign his life away without knowing what he was doing.  
  
“Whether you’ll marry me soon,” Draco said, and kissed his shoulder. Harry jumped and shivered all over, because a kiss like that on skin that had been touched by the rose was a shock right now. “I don’t want to wait.”  
  
Harry turned around and considered Draco carefully for a moment. Draco nodded, as though he was hearing the thoughts in Harry’s head and agreeing with them, but he didn’t say anything.  
  
 _He’s waiting for me,_ Harry realized.  _He’s waiting for me to make the decision_.  
  
Surely it shouldn’t be a hard decision. Harry had made the decision to return the commitment that Draco had already given him, or the one that he had given Draco in an illusory manner before this, not realizing what he was doing. Getting married now wasn’t any different from doing it a year down the road.   
  
But it did feel as though he was stepping over a cliff without a broom, Harry thought. Who knew how things would change? What kinds of things he would have to do as a Malfoy spouse that he’d never had to do before?  
  
Then he looked into Draco’s patient, waiting eyes, and he relaxed. Draco knew the man he wanted to bond with. He wouldn’t expect Harry to act like a perfect, proper, pompous, pure-blood spouse all the time. He knew full well that if Harry didn’t understand the good reasons behind a custom, he would simply refuse to honor it, and that meant that Draco wouldn’t try to enforce silly beliefs on Harry.  
  
Harry could trust Draco with his heart and his body. And he could also trust Draco to know him, to honor his own wishes the way that Harry was trying to honor the pure-blood customs Draco liked when he thought he could do so.  
  
He nodded and said, “As long as it’s not today, then yes.”  
  
Draco’s eyes burned with a clear, surging flame. He took Harry’s hand and touched it with the silver rose again, tracing it and turning it in circles that made it hard to think before he whispered, “Why not today?’  
  
“You’re doing that on purpose,” Harry said, when he got his breath back.  
  
Draco gave him a cat-like smile Harry had never seen before, and ran the rose up Harry’s finger again, the petals curling around the knuckles and testing Harry’s resolve. Harry shored it up, though. He would  _not_ throw Draco against the bathroom wall and have his way with him right then. For one thing, that would probably crush the rose, and that would ruin the mood entirely.  
  
“Yes,” said Draco. “But I want to know the answer, too.”  
  
“Because I am not getting married naked,” said Harry. “And without my friends there, and without whatever ridiculous little pure-blood things you want to have as part of the bonding—why are you  _smiling_?”  
  
“Because you can call them that, and yet mean such affection,” Draco whispered, and replaced the petals of the rose with his mouth.  
  
Another reason they weren’t getting married that day, Harry reflected later, was that they wouldn’t have had time after the near-hour that they spent on the bathroom floor making each  _other_ pant.  
  
*  
  
“Golden is going to fly in front of you with the rose in his beak.”  
  
“Not a rose,” said Draco, who was holding up a robe and running his hands over it as if the white cloth would tell him itself why it apparently wasn’t fit to be Harry’s bonding robe. Harry had assumed that Draco would take care of the selection of the robes by himself, because he was the one who would know the appropriate materials and colors for the pure-blood customs, and anyway, Harry didn’t much care what he wore.  
  
But no, they were all in a wing of the Manor that looked as if it hadn’t been used in even longer than the warded rooms where the Portkey ring had brought Harry, and Draco had boxes and trunks and huge things Harry had thought were books until he opened them piled around him, holding up bolts of cloth and shimmering translucent fabrics and things that Harry had thought were spools of light.  
  
Harry had mostly made it clear that he wasn’t wearing one of the spools, or that he was only wearing it in conjunction with something else. Draco had agreed to that so easily that Harry had wondered why he wanted to examine the trunks that had the spools in the first place.  
  
Now, watching the way that Draco held up the apparently unacceptable robe and turned it back and forth, Harry thought he knew, and turned away so he wouldn’t snort up uncontrollable laughter. Draco had forgotten what trunks held which fabrics.  
  
“Why not a rose, Daddy?” Scorpius touched the small perch he was carrying, which he had said Golden needed. He had managed to arrange the little bird’s feet so they gripped the wood, and Harry honestly wasn’t sure if he had managed to manipulate them in a way that George had infused the bird with and Harry hadn’t discovered before this, or if it was due to accidental magic. Harry had carved the perch for him with a spell, though. “Why not a rose? It would be perfect.”  
  
Draco put down the white robe and glanced at Harry. His eyes were serious, thoughtful, but so warm that Harry had to smile. He reached out and tugged on a lock of Draco’s hair. “Does it have something to do with the silver rose you used to announce your intentions?” he asked softly.  
  
“Yes,” said Draco. “There will be roses at the bonding, but they have to be silver ones, and they have to be on us, not on birds.” He turned and smiled at Scorpius, and Harry watched with delight the transformation his face usually went through when he looked at his son. He thought now that had been his first sign that Draco had really changed, the way he loved Scorpius. “It’s tradition.”  
  
“ _Why_ is it tradition, though?” Scorpius put down Golden’s perch, something he hadn’t done often since Harry had made it for him, and glared a little into his father’s face. “You have to tell me!”  
  
“Not if you’re not polite,” Draco said calmly, and turned back to the next robe in the next trunk, which was shadow-grey. Harry eyed it skeptically. He thought Draco would look wonderful in it, but  _he_ wouldn’t.  
  
Harry had asked about Draco’s bonding robes, and had been told they were traditional, too, and long since picked out. Harry had to be content with that.  
  
“Fine,” said Scorpius, when his appealing looks from his father to Harry had produced no result on either end. Harry didn’t want to undermine Draco’s authority, but even more than that, he didn’t know the significance of the silver roses at all. “Please. Tell me why it’s tradition.” ‘  
  
Draco nodded, calmly and seriously, and said, “Because roses represent the perfect flower. They have thorns to defend themselves, but they’re soft to the touch at the same time. Wizards can breed them in all sorts of ways, in all sorts of colors. They vary, but they remain the same flower at the core, recognizable. They’re the flowers that are the most like humans because of all the different ways they can change.”  
  
His eyes found Harry’s, and Harry knew who this little lecture was really for. Draco hadn’t tried to soften the words for Scorpius’s understanding, but he often didn’t, expecting his son to figure things out. Harry was the one who stared straight back into Draco’s eyes and asked, “But why silver, then? That doesn’t explain  _that_.”  
  
“No, it doesn’t,” said Draco, calmly enough, and reached out one hand to Harry and one to Scorpius. “What makes silver so special is that it’s a symbol of—”  
  
“Purity!” said Scorpius, so unexpectedly that Harry jumped in spite of himself. “I remember you telling me that from some of the stories that I learned when I was a kid!” He beamed at Harry and Draco in turn, and Harry bit his lip and valiantly refrained from laughing. It was a good restraint, because Scorpius was babbling on. “And silver’s special, because it’s connected to the moon, and it rings when you drop it in a way that no other metal does, and—” He stopped abruptly and shook his head. “I don’t remember the rest, Daddy. I’m sorry.”  
  
“It’s all right,” Draco said, and let go of Scorpius’s hand to ruffle his hair. “The rose is silver because it’s a pure color, yes, and a symbol of the moon that has enormous magical power, and because no natural rose is silver. It’s a rose that humans bred.” He turned and held Harry’s eyes alone this time. “It’s a sign of great change, both in the moon and in the world. And it’s the sort of symbol that the pure-blood customs settled on long ago, and that I want to match with your bonding robe, Harry.”  
  
Harry blinked, hard. “No wonder you’re searching so hard for it,” he said at last. “But I don’t know if I should actually wear silver. I don’t know if it would look good on me.”  
  
“You  _always_ look good, Harry,” said Scorpius loyally.  
  
“Not silver itself,” said Draco, and kissed Harry gently on the cheek. “Silver is simply a symbol of the things that I want in our bonding, and it doesn’t need to be on the robe. The robe only needs to show forth the inner purity and grace that you have, and be a symbol of the great change you’re making in your life.”  
  
“Wow,  _only_?” Harry asked mildly, and ducked when Draco swatted him on the shoulder.  
  
But it took just a few more minutes of searching through the trunks while Harry entertained Scorpius for Draco to find what he wanted. He turned and stood up, shaking out the robe. “What do you think, Harry?”  
  
Harry wanted to retort that what he thought didn’t matter, because of course Draco would choose what he wanted and Harry had no say, but then his breath caught in his throat.  
  
The robe was pale green, the color of new leaves, and it did have silver on it after all—silver cuffs and hems. Harry had thought such a thing would look gaudy when he tried to imagine it, but this only looked fresh and clean. And even if it  _was_ Slytherin colors…  
  
“I like it,” he said.  
  
“Yes, I rather thought you might,” said Draco, and laid the robe carefully over the top of the nearest trunk, after he’d cast a spell that freed the trunk from dust. “So we’ll start sending invitations out tomorrow.”


	36. Bonding

“You’re sure about this, mate?” Ron was squinting at Harry as if he could take him out of Slytherin colors if he just looked at him long enough.  
  
“Sure,” said Harry, and adjusted the cuffs of his robe in front of the mirror. He met Ron’s eyes in the reflection, and had to laugh. “You look as though you think I’m going to burst into flames or start molting my Polyjuice disguise any second.”  
  
“I know that you’re happy with Malfoy,” Ron said, and waved one hand. “But I do think it’s a bit fast to be getting married to him.”  
  
Harry cocked his head. “You remember some of the things you and I and Hermione went through?”  
  
“Of course.” Ron looked taken aback, and wandered around so that Harry could no longer see him in the mirror. Harry turned and saw him toying with a hook on the far wall of the dressing room that was probably meant to hold a cloak. Draco had insisted that Harry get dressed in his robe in a far room of the Manor, because he couldn’t see Draco the morning of the bonding. It was a bare room, except for the mirror and a few trunks that probably stored old clothes. “But that was over a lot longer period of time.”  
  
“Sure,” said Harry, and almost leaned against the wall before he thought of the dust that would get all over his robe if he did that, and Draco’s probable reaction. He settled for standing upright and casting a spell that would put a small, invisible barrier between him and the wall. That way, he could still get some of the weight off his feet. “But things tended to change pretty fast. We became friends with Hermione because of something that was intense, and fast. I became enemies with Voldemort pretty much the first time I heard about him.” He paused and eyed Ron. “We all suffered during the war because of things that didn’t take that much time when they happened, but they were important.”  
  
Ron flushed. “So you’re saying that this—”  
  
“What I have with Draco is intense,” Harry said quietly. “I think what matters is how deep it is, not how quick it is.”  
  
Ron considered him with a different sort of expression this time. “I used to think that you were the only one of us who had grown up and gone on with his life after the war,” he said. “Now, I think maybe you still have a bit of the child left inside.”  
  
Harry rolled his eyes. “Of course I do. How we handled it was different, but. Well. I had to move my bed away from the walls. And I have nightmares sometimes.” That had been  _fun_ , the first time he had awakened from one in the same bed as Draco, and had to explain what was going on. “You got married before I did and had a child. And I think you’re a good dad to Rose. You just need help sometimes, that’s all.”  
  
“ _Sometimes_.”  
  
“Listen,” said Harry, and waited until Ron was looking at him. “Draco said that custom requires I have this attendant who’s my best friend. And pure-blood, if it can be managed. And I’m doing this not because I really care about the customs, but because I love Draco, and  _he_ does. Just like I did things for you because I cared about you without wanting to become a Healer and help everyone in sight.” He nodded at the door. “But I’m going to call Hermione in, and who cares what the bloody customs say, if my best friend doesn’t stop brooding about his  _completely imaginary_ lack of best-friend-hood around me.”  
  
It took a moment, but Ron laughed. Then he reached out and grabbed Harry in a long, deep hug. “I just want you to be happy, mate,” he whispered.  
  
“Believe me,” Harry whispered back, “if I’m not, then I know what to do.”  
  
Ron nodded and took a step back, and this time, he was beaming all over his face. “Reckon you do.” He turned to the door. “Shall we?”  
  
*  
  
Hermione joined them when Harry came out of the storage room. She was standing in the middle of the corridor and frowning at an empty portrait frame on the wall. Harry hoped one of the Malfoy ancestors hadn’t ducked out of sight of a Muggleborn and caused a problem, but when Hermione turned around, she shook her head.  
  
“The only way this place could stay as clean as it does without constant use is house-elves,” she said.  
  
Harry hid his smile and decided that Hermione didn’t need to know how often he relied on their services, the same way Hermione sometimes pretended to Harry that all Rose ate was healthy vegetables. “I know,” he said soothingly. “But there aren’t going to be any elves taking part in the bonding ceremony, you know.”  
  
“That’s because they’re all preparing the feast.” Hermione tapped her foot.  
  
For once, Harry could honestly shake his head. “No. The food we’re going to eat had to be cooked or prepared or at least bought with our own hands.” Harry had spent a lot of time in the kitchen yesterday with a cake- and sandwich-smeared Scorpius, who had shouted and clapped his hands and run around with joy as Harry made the meal.   
  
Scorpius had dictated most of the menu, not that Harry minded. Along with the child that still lurked inside him when it came to intense experiences, there was another child who appreciated a meal of cakes and sandwiches—delicious sandwiches made with all sorts of fillings, the kind of thing he could do for himself but rarely bothered with—just fine. At the very least, he thought his best friends would enjoy the meal after the bonding.  
  
“Well, okay,” said Hermione, and for an instant she looked so out of sorts because she didn’t have something to complain about that Harry bit his lip. “Fine, then. I reckon we start walking to the bonding now?” She looked at Ron as though he should know, although Harry thought he was the one who had the most knowledge of the customs involved after Draco.  
  
“Yes,” said Harry primly, and pretended to strut and swagger in his robe as he led them down the corridors. That finally got a laugh out of Hermione, and Harry smiled to himself when he heard Ron chuckle with her.  
  
He would have wanted to have his best friends with him even if they were still having nightmares and needing his help constantly, and even if the custom didn’t call for him to have a friend help him with his robes, but he was so glad they could be here like this, for these reasons.  
  
*  
  
Harry rounded the corner and stopped with a gasp. He had thought he was stepping into the gardens of Malfoy Manor, and he would find the ordinary gardens there—decorated a little, because Scorpius had wanted to and there was nothing in the customs that forbade it, but still, ordinary.  
  
It wasn’t. At all.  
  
Andromeda and Teddy stood off to the side, Teddy grinning like mad, beneath an arch of silver roses that ran the length of the garden. They weren’t real, like the one that Scorpius ran up breathlessly to give to Harry, but it was still something Harry hadn’t thought would be there.  
  
And there were lights, fairy lights and softly sparkling globes the color of icicles, hovering above the points of the fence, and strung in the bushes, and everywhere around the property that Harry could see. Beside the lights were small photographs of Harry and Draco, set into frames, that turned continually to face each other. Harry was sure it was a spell, but it was one he had never heard of, which made it all the more wondrous.  
  
Overhead soared Golden, the only golden one in a flock of swirling silver birds. Harry had to swallow hard when he saw them. George had said that he didn’t feel he could attend the bonding ceremony—he just wasn’t up to it—but he had sent his best wishes, in the best way he knew how. Scorpius was already looking from Golden up at the other birds as if figuring out how to catch them.  
  
Draco stood at the front of the gardens, down a path between the bushes that had fairy lights and pictures under them, beneath the largest globe of light in the garden. The soft radiance it shed on him mingled with the sheer joy in his gaze to distract Harry at first, and he didn’t see the robes Draco was wearing.  
  
Then he made them out, a golden color so gentle that it looked like brown or yellow until Draco moved or breathed. Like Harry’s, it was ornamented with silver at cuffs and hem. A collar of white lace stood up around his neck.  
  
On his hand was the ring that Harry had given him, shining with its ruby, and on the other wrist the bracelet with its entwining pattern of flowers and leaves that matched the ring he’d given Harry. Harry smiled at him, and Draco smiled back at him in a way that made his heart tingle and pound hard enough he thought it was probably distorting the neat line of his robes.  
  
On the other hand, he was perfectly sure that Draco would forgive him for it.  
  
Harry advanced with slow steps. Draco stood in front of the low green bank of turf and grass that he’d raised, and didn’t come to meet him, although Harry saw him tremble with the eagerness to do so. But Harry was trying to give the ritual the respect it deserved, as well as taking in the sights all around him, and Draco must know that.  
  
Finally, Harry stood in front of the green altar, and turned to face Draco. At the same moment, someone shimmered into being behind Draco, removing the Disillusionment Charm.  
  
Harry blinked. Draco had told him that the customs called for Draco, as the one who had announced the time of the bonding and the owner of the house, to have a pure-blood with him who wasn’t a close friend to help with his own robes, but Harry had forgotten about it entirely. And here was Neville, grinning at him and taking the thin outer cloak, also golden, from Draco’s shoulders and stepping back with a wink.  
  
Harry opened his mouth to say something, but Draco was already moving forwards, and the globe of light hovering above his head moved with him. Harry closed his mouth obediently, and tilted his head so Draco could touch his neck with the petals of the silver rose that he also carried.  
  
The birds that flew above them circled down and landed on the grass. Scorpius stepped beside them, breathless and looking from one of their faces to the other. Andromeda and Teddy and Ron and Hermione went quiet at the same instant, and Harry wondered if that was something Draco had told them they had to do, or rehearsed, or just a nice coincidence.  
  
Or maybe, like Harry, they could sense the mood that Draco had fallen into at the moment, although Harry didn’t think any of them were close enough to make out the deep solemnity in Draco’s eyes.  
  
“This rose seals the bond between us,” Draco whispered. “As it didn’t grow on its own, as it was cultivated, so we’ve cultivated the bond that grows between us. It’s something we had to choose, and every step has been a different kind of choice.” He paused, and Harry wondered if anyone else there knew Draco well enough to see how strong his uncertainty was. “Do you make the final choice to bond with me?”  
  
Harry caught Draco’s hand and kissed the back of it. Here was Draco, not knowing Harry’s answer, but brave enough to ask him in front of people he didn’t know that well and family he had only recently reconciled with. Harry honored his courage more than he could say.  
  
“Yes,” Harry whispered, when Draco stood there and looked at him, and either he also wanted Harry to prove his courage, or he didn’t trust the moment to be real until Harry agreed. “I promise to be yours. I  _choose_ to be yours.”  
  
Draco’s smile was a new beginning. He reached for something lying on the green mound beside them, although Harry knew there hadn’t been anything there a second ago when he’d glanced at it. What Draco raised was a delicate circle of silver links, joined by a thin, fine chain to another circle. Each collar had a single stone dangling from it as a pendant, which in the case of the one on the left was a sapphire and in the case of the one on the right…  
  
Harry squinted. He didn’t recognize the stone.  
  
“It’s a ruby,” Draco said quietly. “Like the one you gave me. But this one is a star ruby.” He turned the necklace, and Harry nodded; he could see the star-like shape that seemed to float in the surface of the jewel. “Just as the other one is a star sapphire.” And Draco turned the necklace again, and Harry gave a low, admiring whistle at the sight of the soft white starburst that glowed there.  
  
“What do those symbolize?” Harry whispered. He wondered for a moment if the others could hear them, and then dismissed the notion. It didn’t matter if they could or not. What mattered was the slow smile that worked across Draco’s face, the spark touched in him by what he could surely tell was genuine interest.  
  
“They symbolize great endurance of the relationship,” Draco breathed, and turned the necklace so that the stars flashed again. “And the star shows that we shine equally well. Rubies and sapphires are close to the same stone, you know. The different colors still show that we have a variety of talents and abilities between us.”  
  
After a moment, Harry gravely inclined his head. Honestly, he didn’t know of anyone who could make him feel as much a part of the pure-blood world as Draco. And he didn’t know anyone else he would have been willing to learn all these customs for. Of course, Ron and Hermione would never have asked it of him.  
  
“We both wear the chain,” Draco said. “For a moment only,” he added hurriedly.  
  
Harry nodded again. He could see that, and he was a little curious to see what would happen when the chains settled around their necks.  
  
He had to step closer to Draco and dip his head so Draco could get the collar with the star ruby over his ears. Then Draco, working with his hands in two positions so far apart that Harry winced a little for him, managed to arrange things so that the star sapphire collar settled around his own neck at the same moment.  
  
Harry gasped aloud when the globe of light above them began to whirl around, faster and faster. Draco caught his hand and held him still as the shadows and the radiance danced and flickered over them. His smile was so extraordinarily sweet that Harry smiled back and stood there, unafraid and uncomplaining, while the light came near enough to make Harry feel as if his ears were burning.  
  
But then the light flashed and glimmered out, and Harry looked down, blinking. The chain that led from one collar to the other was glowing with the flash’s remains. As Harry watched, the light slowly worked its way up the fine links, in both directions, so that Harry wore one collar of brilliance and Draco the other.  
  
Draco reached out and caught Harry’s right hand with his left one. Harry nodded again at the second silent question those eyes asked.  
  
“Do you promise to be true to me?” Draco asked.  
  
“I promise to be true to you,” said Harry, with no hesitation and no doubt in his voice. He hoped that would help soothe any fear his friends might feel that this wasn’t right for him.  
  
“And I promise to be true to you,” Draco said, and the light faded out around a third of his own collar. Harry was sure the same thing had happened to him. “Do you promise to be at my side?”  
  
Harry smiled. He didn’t know why Draco had insisted on hiding the vows they would make from Harry, which he had. Harry thought they were simple, sweet, straightforward—the sort of vows he would have  _wanted_  to make with a spouse. “I promise to be at your side.”  
  
“And I promise to be at yours,” said Draco, and another third of the collars turned back into ordinary silver. Draco took a single deep breath, and then released it. “Do you promise to share your life with me?”  
  
Harry didn’t touch Draco’s cheek, because he doubted the ritual would allow it and he didn’t know if Draco would want it, but those eyes, so large and vulnerable…  
  
And so trusting and courageous. “I promise to share my life with you,” Harry whispered, the words flowing forth as effortlessly as though he had known what to say, and had had time to prepare.  
  
“And I promise to share my life with you.”  
  
The last of the light vanished from the collars. Then, abruptly, the collars lifted off their necks, the chains going wide so that Harry didn’t even feel it slip up and around his ears and hair. He looked up in time to see the star ruby and star sapphire detach from their pendants and orbit around the chain, which was shining brighter and brighter.  
  
“Watch,” Draco whispered, taking his hand, and Harry leaned his head against Draco and watched as the light consumed the silver, and reached out to touch the gems. Then Harry had to hide his eyes as the radiance grew too bright to continue looking at.  
  
The silver mass fell down towards them at last. Harry would have moved, but Draco stood there, calm and confident, and his hold on Harry’s arm kept Harry in place.   
  
When the light landed, it faded out, and Harry stared. On the green grass mound next to them stood a simple cup, made of silver, but silver that looked as though it was folded and pleated, like the links of a chain. It had two handles, one made of ruby and one of sapphire, and a star-pattern imprinted on either side.  
  
“Now,” Draco said, “we drink out of this. It’s a sign that our marriage is true, that it formed this shape so quickly.” He lifted the cup by one handle. Harry took the other, and opened his mouth to ask what they were going to fill the cup with.  
  
Then he saw the cup was already filled with a dark, sparkling purple wine. Harry smiled in wonder, and lifted the cup to his lips at the same time Draco did. The brim was so wide they could easily drink together.  
  
The wine was like nothing Harry had ever tasted, foam with an edge of sweetness, and for a second, a torrent of whispering thoughts went past him. Draco’s, he knew. Harry couldn’t hear them properly, but he was sure every one of them spoke of love.  
  
Draco blinked and shook his head, and then stepped back. Harry let go of the silver cup at the same time, and it floated over and settled on the mound of green grass in front of them. In seconds, it sank into the grass and blended with it, and a sheen of silver spread across the green. Smiling, Draco bent down and took up two small circlets that Harry realized, a moment later, were rings, thin enough that they could be worn on the same fingers as the ruby ring and the ring Draco had given him.  
  
“Witness the bonding,” Draco said softly, and slid the first ring onto Harry’s finger. Harry blinked and came back to himself, and managed to follow suit a second later.  
  
The rings settled softly into place, perfectly fitted. Harry looked up and carefully slid a hand around Draco’s chin, watching his face. He wanted to know if they could kiss now, but he was afraid of mistaking the moment and causing some upset to Draco.  
  
Draco only inclined his head with his eyes shining, and Harry kissed him. It was softer, gentler, than so many of the kisses they had shared, but this time, Harry was certain that was only because of the audience. They would have harder kisses later, when they were in the privacy that could safely shield such things.  
  
Scorpius cheered, and a moment later, Teddy and Andromeda followed suit. Neville clapped. Ron and Hermione smiled, and then joined in the applause when Scorpius whispered loudly, “Why aren’t they clapping, Daddy?”  
  
But Harry, standing there for a moment with his touch still lingering on Draco’s finger where he’d slid the ring on, couldn’t care less at the moment who was applauding and who was cheering. What mattered more than anything was the smile on Draco’s face, and the way his eyes shone.  
  
This was love. More precious than any ring or gem. More binding than any custom.  
  
 **The End.**


End file.
